Why Siri is Both Smart and Stupid
By Harry McCracken | Friday, December 2, 2011 at 9:45 pm
Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land has the best piece I’ve seen on why the iPhone 4S’s Siri can’t find abortion clinics–and scads of other things–and why that isn’t the result of a conspiracy.
Most often, Apple waits to release stuff until its exceptionally polished. With Siri, it unveiled something that’s a beta in the classic sense of the word: an unfinished product. I’m glad it did, but the company is catching (rather silly) flak in part because people expect Apple products to just work.
Comments are closed
Read more:
6 Comments For This Post
December 2nd, 2011 at 11:27 pm
"but the company is catching (rather silly) flak in part because people expect Apple products to just work."
Hmm. No, not silly. If you want to charge a lot more, expect criticism for trying to pass off a beta product as a RTM…
December 3rd, 2011 at 9:11 am
Clarification: I don’t think expecting products to work is silly, or that criticizing Siri is silly. But I do think that believing that Apple is intentionally preventing people from finding abortion clinics using Siri is silly, and that becoming wildly indignant over it is silly.
–Harry
December 3rd, 2011 at 10:24 am
Yes, "silly" in that case is an understatement…
December 3rd, 2011 at 9:40 am
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
January 6th, 2012 at 8:54 pm
Siri is a useless feature that, when the society is getting more and more advance, people like to be more civilized and discreet (similar to society in Japan and Germany when U are not allowed to talk on the phone in public transport), who will want to shout at a phone when it is better to use key pads ? Apple is hopeless and running out of ideas, rest in peace !
January 16th, 2012 at 1:35 pm
When I'm driving, the fact that siri can read and then reply to a text message all at the push of a single button is a decidedly superior option to any key pad.