Siri

[ceredon]

When the phrase "for instance" is used, it is an explanation of a causal connection. It means you are explaining your previous statement. So yes, they did blame hardware.

Why do you keep bringing up Android? I am not saying their manufacturers are better. I am just saying the Apple made up a lie for why MMS didn't work.

Umm, you realize your quote is from the engadget liveblog of the event at the time, which are quickly typed live and shouldn't be taken as a direct quotes. You will never get accurate, verbatim quotes from a live blog. For example, from the same event, on the same topic, the MacWorld quote is:

What about the rest of us? iPhone 3.0 will be a great customer release when available: "this summer." Free to all iPhone 3G customers. And it's enabled to work on the original iPhone as well. Not all features will be available on original iPhone (MMS and stereo Bluetooth, for example.)

gdgt, same event, same quote

“As a bonus, we’ve enabled it to work on the original iPhone. The hardware’s changed though: MMS and A2DP won’t be available on the original iPhone.”

Maybe you are right and they did explicitly blame the hardware for lack of MMS support. They certainly strongly implied it at the very least. As with Siri, it might have worked on older generations but the UX would have been sub-optimal. I have no doubt Apple has left features out for some phones in order to encourage new purchases. But they aren't alone in this and I disagree with your claim that they falsely blamed the hardware. Siri was only on the 4S because of new dedicated hardware. Just because it could work on an iPhone 4, doesn't mean it would work well. In that case, blaming the hardware is truthful. MMS was left out off of a 2 year old model because it was a 2 year old model that was known to be resource constrained (as was the 3G) and was only 2G cellular, so MMS might be a crap experience. Once 3.0 can out, many people found it degraded their experience on the iPhone 3G, let alone the original iPhone. So, again, blaming the hardware wouldn't be false.

Just for **** and giggles, I went and watched the event video. This is the exact quote:
"Now the hardware has changed enough between these two devices that not all the features will be avaialble on the original iphone. For instance MMS and stereo bluetooth will not be available on the original iPhone."
Note they clearly did not say the hardware was incapable of supporting MMS and they did not say the original iPhone could not support it. They said the hardware has changed enough that those features wouldn't be available on the original iPhone, which of course is not the same incapable. So, yes, you are right, they did blame the hardware without saying the hardware prevented support. Apple is usually pretty careful about their exact wording. Had they said "The hardware in the original iPhone can't support MMS, so it's not going to be available" they would be making a false statement. Their careful wording leaves wiggle room, where they blame the hardware without blaming the hardware explicitly.

[Earache]

Since when does voice-recording-data-tranmission require a dual-core cpu??

There are plenty of cheap garbage android(garbage meaning spec wise) phones that all use Google's feature without hiccups..

Siri is a server based voice recognition/search software...it uses data. Now if Siri was hosted off the actual phone then I understand why it may be hindered, but in actuality its not.

It is Apples way of getting users to buy their latest toys and many manufactures are following suit. To me its very unethical and questions the intelligence of the consumer, hence me voiding my bowels of any Apple products I had.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[ceredon]

Since when does voice-recording-data-tranmission require a dual-core cpu??

There are plenty of cheap garbage android(garbage meaning spec wise) phones that all use Google's feature without hiccups..

Siri is a server based voice recognition/search software...it uses data. Now if Siri was hosted off the actual phone then I understand why it may be hindered, but in actuality its not.

It is Apples way of getting users to buy their latest toys and many manufactures are following suit. To me its very unethical and questions the intelligence of the consumer, hence me voiding my bowels of any Apple products I had.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

Umm, do some reading on Audience EarSmart. No one ever claimed Siri was not included on the iPhone 4 because it didn't have a dual core CPU. The 4S includes Audience EarSmart technology that the iP4 did not. This tech is used for noise cancelation, which is sort of necessary for improved voice recognition.

Please, please, please do some research before trolling.

[Earache]

Really that's the excuse you use for not providing Siri on the iPhone 4?? You do know that the iPhone 4 does have noise-cancellation tech in it as well provided by the same company...

Don't be a fool. Apple does this on purpose to push their new products, just like every other tech company out there. Oh and btw Apple's voice recognition software wasn't patented until a last year.

You seem like you have eyes only for Apple and strive to protect their name. Do you own shares??

The whole "working well" is a gimmick by Apple. If they preached that, then the phone wouldn't have lacked basic features for so damn long (here's looking at you MMS and Copy/Paste).

[jeffmd]

Ceredon, it has been demonstrated that seri works fine on older iphone hardware. Noise cancelation be damned, the reason for it is to make it a bullet point to upgrade.

[ceredon]

Really that's the excuse you use for not providing Siri on the iPhone 4?? You do know that the iPhone 4 does have noise-cancellation tech in it as well provided by the same company...

yes, it has an earlier implementation of tech from the same company but an inferior, older implementation. Apple is all about controlling the user experience. An inferior UX that doesn't make their standards won't be supported by them very often.

Don't be a fool. Apple does this on purpose to push their new products, just like every other tech company out there. Oh and btw Apple's voice recognition software wasn't patented until a last year.

Apple is a guilty as the rest in this regard. Just not in this case. Which Apple voice recognition software are you referring to? They hold voice recognition and speech patents going back to the 90's or earlier.

You seem like you have eyes only for Apple and strive to protect their name. Do you own shares??

Nope, no shares. I don't strive to protect their name. I dislike ignorance and try to clear it up when I see it posted. Especially by trolls.

The whole "working well" is a gimmick by Apple. If they preached that, then the phone wouldn't have lacked basic features for so damn long (here's looking at you MMS and Copy/Paste).

You've never worked in software development have you? Nothing is ever released with every possible feature. MMS and C&P were considered low enough on the list to leave out initially. WP7 also omitted with C&P when it was first released.

Ceredon, it has been demonstrated that seri works fine on older iphone hardware. Noise cancelation be damned, the reason for it is to make it a bullet point to upgrade.

there is a difference between working fine and working up to specs. Do you think they are paying Audience for the new tech for giggles? No they went with the newer EarSmart for a reason. Siri itself is already far from perfect (hence beta). Do you think they want their flagship feature to be further degraded by inferior noise sensitivity?

[mandrsn1]

there is a difference between working fine and working up to specs. Do you think they are paying Audience for the new tech for giggles? No they went with the newer EarSmart for a reason. Siri itself is already far from perfect (hence beta). Do you think they want their flagship feature to be further degraded by inferior noise sensitivity?

Personally, I bet they could use very similar voice tech on the server side and have fairly equal performance on the iPhone 4. In fact, the server would have more computational resources and may even perform better. However, maybe Audience didn't allow it.

[ceredon]

Personally, I bet they could use very similar voice tech on the server side and have fairly equal performance on the iPhone 4. In fact, the server would have more computational resources and may even perform better. However, maybe Audience didn't allow it.

The quality of the mic and audio source is critical. Here's an example: if you've even used Dragon or ViaVoice on your PC/Mac, you'll remember that not only does having a mic close to your mouth work better than using the built in mic, but they actually have mic designed to improve speech recognition. The point of the newer earSmart tech is to improve the source audio.

I am in no way arguing that the iP4 could not have supported Siri. It obviously could have. But it is also obvious that the iP4S had key advances that would improve the UX and given Siri was already 'not quite ready for primetime' they needed every advantage possible to showcase it in the best light. Implementing it on the iP4 would have opened it to much more ridicule and it just would not have worked as well as on the iP4S.

[Earache]

Have you ever developed anythings? Software develop has outlines, if stick all your software features into 1 product, then consumers have no reason to update.

By leaving out MMS, C&P, Siri it tells the consumer 2 things.
1)They have bad developers.
2)They implemented it as such, thus telling the consumer, "you want, you buy it."

If a inferior blackberry at the time could do all those things, surely the "great" iphone could as well.

It has nothing to do with earSmart, your example using a Macbook is incorrect as the iphone since the 3GS (if not mistaken) has 2 mics, compared to a single 1 in the laptop; therefore voice functionality works different on the 2 different platforms.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[ceredon]

Have you ever developed anythings? Software develop has outlines, if stick all your software features into 1 product, then consumers have no reason to update.

I have and do. I actually work as a software developer for one of the companies involved in making Siri work(not Apple).

And there are always going to be more features to add and more functionality to add and more hardware to add that will entice customers to buy new.

Software development is driven by resources and deadlines. You include what you are able to include. Yes sales and marketing will have input, but they are less likely to be involved in requesting a feature be omitted than in demanding a feature be added.

By leaving out MMS, C&P, Siri it tells the consumer 2 things.
1)They have bad developers.
2)They implemented it as such, thus telling the consumer, "you want, you buy it."

If a inferior blackberry at the time could do all those things, surely the "great" iphone could as well.

With those example, it was telling consumers: this is our very first phone and very first mobile OS. We had a bazillion features to add. Those two did not make the list.

With Siri, the message is simple: it doesn't work as well on our older products so we won't support it. Not all companies will care as much about UX.

It has nothing to do with earSmart, your example using a Macbook is incorrect as the iphone since the 3GS (if not mistaken) has 2 mics, compared to a single 1 in the laptop; therefore voice functionality works different on the 2 different platforms.

It has nothing to do with earSmart? Then why add it at all? Why not continue to use the old and now cheaper Audience tech? My PC/Mac example is fine. Audio source quality matters. A lot. Placement and quality of the mic is critical. As is local noise cancelation.

[Earache]

What languages do you use at work? I'm interested in knowing.

Thanks

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[ceredon]

What languages do you use at work? I'm interested in knowing.

Personally, mostly C++.

Also, note that I did not claim to work on the Siri related projects, so you can try to dig for more, but I won't have much info for you nor would I be allowed to say.

[mandrsn1]

The quality of the mic and audio source is critical. Here's an example: if you've even used Dragon or ViaVoice on your PC/Mac, you'll remember that not only does having a mic close to your mouth work better than using the built in mic, but they actually have mic designed to improve speech recognition. The point of the newer earSmart tech is to improve the source audio.

I was an audio engineer before I made a career change. Still do a ton of audio work day to day. Overall, I agree. I just think it is very obvious that Apple could have had almost the same experience on the iPhone 4 if they wanted. They chose not to. That is their choice.

But it is nice to have a relatively educated conversation on here. Rather than just the standard mud slinging. haha.

[ceredon]

I was an audio engineer before I made a career change. Still do a ton of audio work day to day. Overall, I agree. I just think it is very obvious that Apple could have had almost the same experience on the iPhone 4 if they wanted. They chose not to. That is their choice.

But it is nice to have a relatively educated conversation on here. Rather than just the standard mud slinging. haha.

In that case, I will bow to your experience. I don't think our positions are that far apart. Mostly superficial elements related to intent.

[rawrr_847]

hey(:
No, I don't think so. Siri isn't supported. There is an app for the iPhone & iPod called Jeannie. It's just like Siri. I've always believed the S in iPhone 4S stands for Siri. I think that's right, but if it's not, that'd be pretty ironic lol. But yeah, try Jeannie..