iPhone Siri vs Windows Phone TellMe, a fair comparison [video]

By Tom Warren, on 2nd Dec 11 3:15 pm with 152 Comments

One particular YouTube user has pitched Apple’s iPhone Siri feature against Microsoft’s Windows Phone TellMe functionality.

The video follows a widely circulated comparison video in late November. The video compared Siri against TellMe in an unfair way. The comparisons were made after Microsoft’s Craig Mundie claimed most of the functionality had been in Windows Phone for a year. Whilst his comments were accurate in some regards, the implementation of both systems is vastly different.

The original video featured commands that Microsoft TellMe does not currently understand. Microsoft’s Tellme technology is more of a command driven feature of Windows Phone right now but the company has plans to improve this in future. Microsoft’s future Tellme speech recognition is a lot more personal and more aligned with Apple’s Siri features. Microsoft demonstrated some of its future speech recognition in Windows Phone in August, see a video demo here.

The latest comparison video, from the guys at Response LTD, features a comparison between both devices in a fair and balanced way. Siri is clearly the winner in speech recognition thanks to the way users can naturally interact with it. However, the video offers up good insight into how each platform handles particular queries, despite the technology behind them. Check it out below.

  • http://techin5.com Jubbin Grewal @Techin5.com

    I don’t blame Siri for not understanding him the first time. I was like ‘Whether what?”

    • Anonymous

      Still this video went a lot better than the other with the Australian accent

    • http://techin5.com Jubbin Grewal @Techin5.com

      I doubt an Jason’s Aussie accent is worse than a Romanian accent.

  • Monkey D Black

    ok. there we go.

  • swanny78

    I think that was a very good comparison.  Certainly fair.  Not with standing the more natural way you can interact with Siri.  I actually thought for results WP7 Tellme was better.

    • http://www.creepinjesus.net CreepinJesus

      Certainly more useful if you do actually want to know what the best smartphone is…

    • Anonymous

      Yea, what was that? I could see if it said that and then took you to the actual search but to just sit there with that stupid message…

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LV3D6HJHINJIVAH35QNWIORKP4 Rob

      I thought Tellme was more useful than Siri. I personally think voice recognition has come a long way but it has a long way to go! At this point Tellme seems to have the edge….

    • Anonymous

      Wow. It’s AMAZING how blind some people can be, I mean seriously in most aspects I think WP destroys iOS but seriously? Just take the loss one damn time. Siri is clearly better than TellMe. We just need to wait for MS to come back with something better in Apollo or Tango.

    • Anonymous

      LOL wut?

    • Anonymous

      @zerocool159:disqus Let me break it down for you, all fanboy shit aside Siri is better, we just need to wait for MS to beat it next year in Tango or Apollo.

    • Guest

      Is the guy talking a bit retarded?  He does not make our Tellme look good.

    • Anonymous

      He’s not American. notice it called a telephone a Telefone. probably some European country.

    • http://twitter.com/PhilR8 Phil Reese

      Did you guys pay attention at all?  He’s from Hungary.

  • Anonymous

    Outside the launching of apps, it looks like Siri is better.

    • http://twitter.com/epidemike EpidemikE

      Siri is better in some regards but in TellMe has many of the capabilities and does them fairly well. Speech to text is great on WP, recognizing names…not so much.

    • Devon Garner

      How about the facebook chat? How about the receiving the text without touching the phone? The natural language was better but overall I think WP7 was on par or slightly better than Siri.

    • Anonymous

      Siri can do facebook chat once the app is open via the mic key. Texting is actually where Siri is currently best developed. Siri reads received texts but currently does not read emails. It can do this just by keying the bluetooth earpiece.

      They both have far to go but other than the app launching Siri seems ahead in most respects. I think Apple should focus on and SDK, additional databases, additional languages and launching apps with intent not just launching. The facebook thing for windows was pretty slick.

      Looks like the next year will be very interesting. Microsoft has lots of IP in this and other areas. I hope they can execute. It would light a fire under Cupertino.

  • http://www.mainstreetchatham.com/ JimmyFal

    That was pretty good, but I can do better. I’m working on borrowing an IPhone, and I will get back to you. I now have extensive experience with both voice systems.

    • http://www.winrumors.com Tom W

      Sounds good. Drop me a line via the contact page once you have :)

  • http://twitter.com/hammeredpizza Louis Sandiford

    I don’t care to be honest. Voice technology is useful for Kinect and movies, but I  can’t really see myself dictating messages or verbally asking my mobile phone a question at any point in the near future.

    • Hugues Lefebvre

      I actually used TellMe last night because my wife texted me and where I live it’s illegal to use a cell phone (or any other distraction) while driving. I just held the home button and said “traffic is heavier than usual, I will be home in 5 minutes” and it wrote it perfectly

  • Anonymous

    I think the fact that TellMe is essentially a “command driven” launcher whereas Siri is more of a language-parsing agent is the whole point.  The comparison in the November video was fair in that regard – Siri is a better agent.  Personally though, I find Siri frustrating as I still have to tailor my “natural language” in a manner that I’ve learned it can understand, when it can.  Until the technology improves, I vastly prefer a robust, voice-enabled launcher like TellMe.

  • Anonymous

    and now you know, will you ever use any of these things? off course not. yet another gimick like 3D tv and talking to your xbox. instead of wasting money on such stupid crap, why not get windows 8 out the door sooner?

    • http://twitter.com/brandnewfunk Brandon

      I agree. There may be times where I may want to PLAY with these gimmicks, but in most cases I would rather, for instance, send a text manually than waste time with these things. HOWEVER, I do think Siri makes for a good personal assistant for things I would be more inclined to tell someone, e.g., Remind me tomorrow at 5 p.m. that I have an appointment with my mother.<< something I would tell my wife (if I had one). OR: Could you troll me how to get to the theatre on Main Street << something my wife would ask the gas station attendant (if I had one).  

    • http://www.twitter.com/wixostrix WixosTrix

      I actually disagree.  I use the voice features everyday for various tasks.  There are many times throughout the day when my hands are full and I need to send a quick message for someone.  Even when they aren’t full I may use it simply if I don’t feel like typing.  It’s pure laziness at that point, but who cares.

      I do agree that the reminders (especially the geo ones) and calendar features are great and I would greatly enjoy similar functionality on my phone.

      Starting apps can be a lot faster than navigating and I’m always making voice searches.

      One of my favorite things that TellMe does it recognize common SMS shorthand and emoticons.  If you say “laughing out loud”, “what the fuck”, or “Oh my god” it will input “LOL”, “WTF”, “OMG” respectively.  Same for “smiley face” :) and frowny face :(

    • http://twitter.com/brandnewfunk Brandon

      oh ok. I don’t have my windows phone yet. but I’ve been following it since the beginning and demoed it a few times and really like the experience of the os over the ios of the iPhone I had.

       that said, I think I will use tellme sometimes to play with it, and other fewer times for serious matters. and for those of us who use voice frequently , that’s  cool too. its all just a matter of preference, versus right or wrong. just like some ppl use front facing cameras and Skype on their phones and computers; I don’t at all. even on this crappy android that I have while I wait for my wp, I RARELY use that little microphone search google thing. my type to voice ratio on this thing is 9.8 to 1.

       so yea, its just preference. even tho I’d venture to say that the majority of us will do most things manually. 

    • Hugues Lefebvre

      I’ll tell you why: Because it’s not the same people working on the mobile OS and the desktop OS and to compete you have to have similar features, or extra features.

      Don’t like it? don’t use it.

    • Anonymous

      I use tell me all the time for Bing searches because it’s much faster than typing. Several times a day in fact.

    • Seth_p

      Gimmick right now… yes. Gimmick in the long run… no. NUI is very real, it’s just
      not done the way that “feels” natural therefore it feels like a gimmick.
      All the steps made by TellMe and Siri help push software to the next step.
      Having machines learn and interpret what we’re saying is actually impressive [if it worked the way you’d anticipate]

      3D on the other hand, yeah. I think it’s a gimmick that provides nothing but an “oh cool”-factor.

  • Anonymous

    Siri has better speech  recognition, but I like the search result from wp7 better. The picture result was definitely presented better and the restaurant result had way more information than the iphone. I also liked that wp read back the dictation. This would probably get used in a car and you shouldn’t have to look down to see if the phone got you message correct. However, the demos I saw of dictation, Work was more accurate. This is where MS need to improve.

  • Loosy Jhony

    Siri beats “TellMe” on a number of places and in a very logical way because on the go we don’t want read long search result but we need to the point information. And I think Siri is cooked with humor and there is lots of machine learning behind this than “TellMe”.

    • Devon Garner

      What if I don’t want my phone to be a smart ass!

    • Anonymous

      Couldn’t agree with you more! SIRI keeps chatting with you while accomplishing only a minimum – nice but not very productive. TellMe goes straight to the task and that is how I would like my phone to work.

      I hope Microsoft won’t just turn it into another SIRI but focus more on adding more commands / functionality. It is just weird if you talk with your phone rather than operating it by voice!

    • Anonymous

      Not accurate. The “chatting” part was seeking clarification when necessary. Making a calendar entry is much faster by voice, for example on 4S. Have you tried it yourself, or are you just making an arbitrary judgement?

    • Anonymous

      ex2bot,
      Since when became a personal preference (= me, preferring TellMe’s simple style over chit-chatting SIRI) an arbitrary judgement? Did you ask your iPhone 4S and that is what came back?

    • Anonymous

      Ask a silly question . . .

      In other words, don’t ask it what’s the meaning of life. I mean, why would you ask a computer anyway? Don’t confide that you’re thinking of killing someone. And if you have to ask, who’s your daddy to the machinery, maybe you’ve got worse problems. See what I mean?

      Set up an appointment, send a text, search the web, stop the music, etc. they all work without smartass responses.

      That said, Microsoft’s looks pretty capable too.

    • Puggsly

      don’t ask it stupid questions!

    • MyNameHere

      Asking “What is the best smartphone” is not a stupid or “cheeky” question (as ex2bot put it). It is a perfectly valid question if you want to see reviews and phone suggestions from review sites.

      The fact that WP7 returns a perfectly valid and useful result for the question shows that Siri is crippled for the sake of looking “smart” when any intelligent person would know it is nothing but a hard-coded response to that question.

      How can I trust that any other questions are not also hard-coded to further Apple’s own agenda?

  • Anonymous

    Hopefully, Microsoft will incorporate TellMe into the XBox somewhere down the road. 

    • http://twitter.com/paulbram Paul Brambilla

      How does this month sound?

    • Derek

      Yeah, in like…3 days!

    • http://www.winrumors.com Tom W

      That’s not TellMe unfortunately. Bing search on Xbox is strictly for content. You can’t search for things outside of movies, music, games etc.

  • ActualWP7User

    I have a Windows Phone and actually have it set up to read me my incoming messages when my phone is connected through bluetooth and headsets. 

    It’s very useful when driving where I can hear the message, choose to reply, say my message, and send it and all without touching the phone once.

  • Anonymous

    All I have to say is atleast Tellme is there and WP included some voice recognition for WP users. I used a Blackberry and a iPhone and the voice recgonition wasn’t even up to par with what Tellme has now. Hands down Siri is better but atleast the ppl that invested into the WP brand have something to use.

  • Anonymous

    When sending a text I think it is good that on wp7 the message is repeated. For example when the phone is in your pocket. Or is this also possible with Siri?

    • Bill Williams

      Or when you’re driving, when you really shouldn’t be looking at your phone’s screen.  With Tellme, you literally never have to look at or touch your phone when you recieve a text and want to reply.  There are also aspects of Siri that Tellme needs to emulate.  That’s the beauty of competition…and both services will evolve for the better.

  • Anonymous

    i haven’t used siri yet as i only have the iphone4 before switching to a windows phone but since i had it i’ve used voice commands mostly when i’m driving, mostly call someone, redial and  it’s really amazing that a text message is read to you and you can reply to it, i can even update my facebook status while driving and that’s without opening an app (used to have vlingo on iphone)

  • Guest

    Far more accurate comparison. But the damage from the first video is already done. While it went viral, this one probably won’t make it past a few MS-focused sites. MS needs to improve the natural language processing and quickly. Forget phones, MS is already way behind in market share there. If Apple gets their Siri-equpped TV out before MS improves TellMe on Xbox/Kinect, then MS’s current lead in the living room could evaporate within a year of Apple’s TV launch.

    • http://twitter.com/pierrerv Pierre Venescar

      dude, must have been some good weed you’ve been smoking!!!

    • Guest

      Impressive counter-argument. Oh right, not really.

    • Anonymous

       In 2 years someone will write an article “How Apple destroyed Microsoft in the living room too”.

    • Guest

      In two years they’ll be studying your brain trying to figure out how to prevent MPD in others.

    • TheReal

      Lets just all ignore ArrowSmith. he obviously has no intellect.

  • Justfortherecord

    Clearly Windows Phone Tellme is a superior voice recognition service.

    Siri, was a company that Apple bought and shoehorned into the IOS 5 IPhone S.

    So it talks back to you when results are populated but how often do you want your phone talking back to you?

    Windows Phone Tellme can initiate the similar result with voice response on results.

    Apple is dying…. yet again.

    • Guest

      Can I have some of whatever you’re smoking?

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NZRPL7DK7DFQQO44J5TM4PQLGU Harvey

      Me too.  While i’m a big supporter of the MS ecosystem, i ain’t crazy enough to say that Apple will die in less than five years.

      Now that Jobs is gone, Apple may take a slight stock hit over the next few years just as MS did when it transitioned from Gates to Ballmer and may loose some of that “Apple changed everything” appeal, but they will be around for a while. 

      Cook will never be Jobs but he has to run the company close to how Job’s managed it.  I mean Steve chose him for a reason. 

      But, if Cook fails bad, then maybe…just maybe, Apple will be in trouble.

    • Anonymous

      It’s Nuance, the best voice rec. in the world.

      But I do agree with you about Apple dying. Mark my words, within 3 to 4 years they won’t be able to make payroll. And this time, Microsoft won’t be bailing them out.

    • Guest

      Make that whatever both of your are smoking.

      Apple is one of the best positioned companies in the industry. Eventually they will peak and then struggle. Maybe, if Cook turns out to be as incompetent over the next decade as Ballmer has been over the last one, they too will have damaged their reputation and become so poorly positioned that they will start to die. But that’s a long way off. For MS’s otoh, it’s now.

    • Anonymous

      I was being just having a little fun being a smart-ass. No one with any sense would believe Apple is dying.

    • Guest

      @ex2bot:disqus 

      Ah, you’re a child. Okay, that explains everything.

    • Guest

      @6ffef01d615dd9f755bb965d861f0f55:disqus 

      I guess you must be one of those who drink Kool-Aid. I guess that must be a lot of it.
      I guess you must be one of those who drink Kool-Aid. I guess that must be a lot of it.

    • Anonymous

       Yeah Apple nearing $90 billion in cash reserves is so DYING.

    • Justfortherecord

      Microsoft has that kind of cash on hand too and they are self insured. And they have had that kind of cash on hand for decades son. recognize what stupid nonsense you keep spewing forth and just sit back down. I know your some sort of cynical type (probably a plant) to insight discord but you consistently put out dumb statements. Stop while your clearly still in the starting gate. your embarrassing yourself.

    • Guest

      No actually, they don’t They have about $50 billion.

    • Anonymous

      @guest no actually they do. Go look at both companies balance sheets. Both companies are actually pretty close. The only was Apple has $90 billion is if you add current assets and long term investments. MS has less but not that far from Apple. They have about $80 billion

    • Anonymous

      Apple doesn’t have 90 billion in cash. Both Apple & MS have 9 billion in cash and cash equivalents. If you add short term and long term investments Apple will have over 90 billion. MS has a a few billion less than Apple.

    • Guest

      Apple:

      Cash $9.8
      Short term investments $16.1
      Long term investments $55.6

      Total: approx $81 billion

      MS:

      Cash $12.8
      ST $44.5
      LT $8.5

      Total: approx $64 billion

      But MS also has $12 in LT debt.

    • Guest

      Correction:

      81.5 vs 65.8

    • TheReal

      AT&T has billions in reserve yet is struggling with infrastructure build out so it wants to by t-Mobile a short term and short sighted approach.

    • TheReal

       If Apple has nothing to worry about why go after the likes of Samsung. Apple should have nothing to worry about if it isnt dying…

  • Impartial

    Another plus was when searching for a restaurant, it was amazing to see how good is bing’s integration of details, reviews, etc vs the map only for iOS, if Microsoft has achieved to be better than the competition in just one year (hater u can say whatever, number of apps will rise eventually), I can’t wait to see WP in 2012-13! Full blown windows that syncs onto a screen via Bluetooth 4.0 with a NFC tap while you put your phone on a cable free charging pad next to it, with Metro WP morfing into Metro on windows, that would be AWESOME! And actually I think my vision will happen and is in MS’s plan, hence why they are willing to lose loads of money now in the phone biz, cos it will be the bread of tomorrows full windows! now just change the name of the OS to LIVE OS and ditch the crappy logo!

  • Anonymous

    Very good video.

  • http://twitter.com/laserfloyd Lewis McCrary

    Some bad weather? What does that mean?  Tornadoes? Drizzle?  Siri, should I dig a basement? ;)

    • http://profiles.google.com/kyle.owen13 Kyle Owen

      Really.  In all of Siri’s user-friendliness, it seems to fail at giving the user the information they want quite a bit.  “What is the meaning of life?”  “A philosophical question.”  Obviously.  “What is the best smart phone?”  “Are you serious?”  What if when I ask these questions, I actually want information?  I’m not gonna say that TellMe does more than Siri, but I think Siri’s ability to communicate “naturally” is just sugar coating on some areas that aren’t up to par.

  • http://www.facebook.com/kenberger Kenneth Berger

    While it is a “fair” comparison and Siri is marginally “better” at commands that Tellme, it does not show off what Siri can do that Tellme can not, it does much more than simply do speech recognition and perform commands, it parses natural language speech.  
    The other comparisons on you tube (and there are many) show this clearly and if you think Tellme is Siri you miss what it can do.  Just watch anyone play with both and they are very different. Tellme would be more like a clearly better Voice Command from iOS in 2009 (http://atmac.org/iphone-voice-commands).

    • Guest

      Actually, parsing natural speech is all it does better. Everything else is Nuance and Wolfram. So what’s your point? Apple arrives years late and has an advantage off the top? D’oh. The real test is can they keep it. We’ll have to wait and see. Also, why are all you dorks here today? This this get picked up on Cult of Mac or something?

    • Anonymous

      It does, but obviously the ads (and youtube videos I guess) only show it working well.

      I recently had some time with a friends’ iPhone 4S so I tried a few things:
      - “Send an email to John, Paul and George about tomorrow” got me an email to John, subject “Paul and George about tomorrow”.
      - I did “what is the highest mountain in the world” and got the right result, but “where is the highest mountain in the world” didn’t work.

      Siri was good at setting reminders, sending emails (except as above) – things that didn’t need to go away and get search results I guess.

      Oddly when it failed my iPhone toting friends basically said they would just work out the right way to ask for what they want, which really misses the point of being able to use natural language. I am guessing if they use Siri to send SMS they will say “text John” (as per TellMe) or something like “send a text to John”, “send a message to John”, which MS could pretty easily add to the commands TellMe understands.

  • http://twitter.com/RobertCFP Robert Wade

    I really like this comparison video, it truly is much more balanced.  There are clearly some positive aspects to Siri—the fact that, as a core piece, you have to “teach it about you”, is something that TellMe could benefit from.  Essentially, this allows user-specific filters to work on the fly, much like location data can influence or filter searches.  Yes, there are definitely some obvious voice aspects missing still in this implementation of TellMe.  But, it mostly comes down to which voice meme you prefer.  I do not want the HAL 9000 meme, I want the Star Trek meme.  Notice that on command areas that both had more in common you had to say a LOT less to TellMe for it to act on than you did with Siri.

  • Okatwork

    Actual quality difference does not really matter anymore. Apple sucessfully created the perception they “invented” the natural language interface. Perception is reality.

    Now Microsoft needs to double down to be very noticeably better.

    • Guest

      Exactly. Nice to see someone here gets it. Most others are acting just like MS and focusing on the actual vs market perception.

    • Anonymous

       If perception is reality, then MSFT might as well close down the company, lay off the 90K employees and give back all the cash to investors.

    • Guest

      Good to have you back. The village was missing its idiot.

    • Anonymous

      We didn’t mean your skewed perception.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3EDAVG3ETGVFRMCOKQXREHVTG4 Kenneth Gordon

      So if I stand on my head and percieve the world is upside down, then it really is, and I am the only one up the right way!  Oh so when the world is spinning when I have had a few too many, its not me thats drunk, its really the world!  Honest, Officer I am not drunk, the world right now is just a confusing place, but once I have had a little snooze I will put the world to rights.

  • http://twitter.com/joepann Kitab

    WP7 TellMe wins this battle, IMHO!
    How about other languages though, and who wins the voice command war? Only time will tell…

  • http://www.geekchoice.com Marie

    Siri and Tellme is a great comparison between both devices.http://www.geekchoice.com 

  • Estevão Garbin

    Who is the ‘normal’ person to like to spent your day talking with a Siri?

    • Justfortherecord

      you did for pointing it out ;)

  • Anonymous

    If Microsoft better incorporates bing instant answers into WP’s bing search the usability of voice commands in WP as an assistant would increase by a lot. Some things like the weather and stock quotes work, but a lot of things
    like conversions, maths, dictionary, should show up on instant like on
    the desktop.

    Also things like music player controls and calendar integration (reading back info only) were available for WinMo 6.5 so its actually a bit disappointing that they are missing from WP

  • Anonymous

    In a txt message say “smiley face.”  What happens on each platform?

    • ActualWP7User

      On WP7 Mango, I got the emoticon “:)” automagically with a period after.

  • MyNameHere

    OK, has anyone considered the following…

    When asked “What is the best smartphone”, Siri comes back with the snarky “Are you serious?” reply, whereas TellMe gives you actual links to smartphone reviews, top ten lists etc.

    Now, let’s say the question was: “What is the best car”? Does Siri still give a snarky reply, or does it actually give useful info like car reviews, etc? If it does give useful results, then it means Apple actively filters certain questions to promote their own agenda. Which means the results you get back is filtered and biased by Apple, and in this case their arrogance clearly shows.

    That should be a big red flag. I doubt TellMe does this since it doesn’t try to be a faux “intelligent” assistant that in reality only replies with canned responses. 

    • Anonymous

      I wondered the same. I mean, please. So I tried it at the Apple Store.

      I said, “What is the best car?”

      Siri said, “[snort] Bitch, please.”

      That’s it. No comprehensive reviews, side-by-side comparisons. Basically, in an Apple world, you’re supposed to bend over and take your paddling! That’s not what I’m looking for in a phone.

      Of course, there are worse options. When you ask Android anything, it berates you for your lack of tech prowess and insults your mother. I’m serious. That’s why we’re seeing comparisons between iPhone and Windows Phone but not Android.

    • MyNameHere

      So do you really believe that Siri is “smart” enough to come up with a response like “Are you serious” all by itself, and that some Apple employee didn’t hand-code that response into their database of canned responses?

      More importantly, you don’t have a problem with these canned responses that try to trick people into believing Siri is actually “intelligent”, while pushing Apple’s own genda? 

      We know Apple can tell their followers anything they want and they will believe it, but seriously, can’t any of you think for yourselves sometimes?

    • Anonymous

      If its smart enough to come up with its own spontaneous responses . . . then wow. That would be the singularity, wouldn’t it.

      I think some people like some humor injected into something like this, and some don’t care for it. Though if you stay away from the dozen or so cheeky questions, you won’t get smart ass responses.

      I think I know sort of how you feel, though. It bugs me (seriously) a bit that Gmail writes, “Hooray! No spam here” in the message pane after you delete all spam. It’s a little too silly for me.

    • Seth_p

      Of course it’s hardcoded based on your question. The disseminated voice result picks up common verbs plus its context.

      I don’t think Apple however had a lot of heavy lifting since they aquired the company. I’m not sure what the state of Siri was at the time of aquisition, so I could be wrong. It’s made to look intelligent, that’s all. In the [possibly] near future, we’ll see a lot more complex AI around NUI which would provide a natural human interaction with our devices. Hooray for scary robots!

    • Guest

      Stupid question, I hope Tellme is snarky for that would show AI 

    • MyNameHere

      If you look at TellMe’s response to the question, you would realize it is a perfectly valid question with a perfectly valid and useful answer.

      Yet Apple decided they are going to show how “smart” Siri is by giving it a hard-coded response to the question. Not only does it diminish the usefulness of Siri, it also displays Apple’s arrogance and at the same time sends a red flag that their answers cannot be trusted since they hard-code responses to some questions (which questions?) in order to push their own agenda.

      I’ll take TellMe over Siri any day.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=744711354 Alan Sylvain

      This is very similar to typing iPhone” or “iPad” on a Windows Phone. The dictionnary automatically capitalise the P, in accordance to Apple naming standards… Yet type Android on an iPhone and it doesn’t even capitalise the A…

      I might sound picky, but to me, it’s a typical sign of Apple’s attitude to competition…

    • cmboo

      Alain, “android” is an English word independent of the operating system just like “windows” is a word independent of the operating system.  When I type both on my WP7 beginning with a lowercase, I get lowercase suggestions.  Since iPhone is not a word in any language, you get the way it was created.

    • cmboo

      Actually, I misspoke. I get a capitalized “Android” on my WP7 phone as a suggestion when I tried to type it in lowercase. So I don’t know what your point is.

    • M Bongz

      So??????? what wrong with that? I always thought it a great thing, e.g I get annoyed when Im using my nokia phone it doesn’t recognize the word NOKIA

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2WNLCWLJUCZ3WEHQUXJOVWISBA Wizard

    C’mon, we all know that we are happy with whatever WP7 has got, we need not have comparisons. WP7 provides all the voice commands which are required, at least for me.
    I would never buy an iPhone just for Siri, no way even otherwise. I already have an iPhone 3G, which I use it for nothing. When I show the comparison between WP7 and iPHone to my frnds, they are amazed at what WP7 does and how good the metro looks and when I explain them about live tiles, they are just flattered, I have become a marketing guy for WP7 phones at my work place LOL.

    • ActualWP7User

      I try to always make my self available to demo my WP7 handset as well.  The stores definitely aren’t doing it….

      I sometimes go into the stores to ask if any of the new handsets (titan, focus s, etc) are coming soon (I’m in Canada) and the sales people try to talk me out of buying a WP7 phone, even though they can’t articulate why and some haven’t even seen or used a WP7 phone before. 

      I’m not saying that WP7 is better, just that is a contender now.

  • Anonymous

    Another area Apple is destroying Microsoft – natural language interface. But where is Apple NOT destroying Microsoft?

    • Guest

      What a sad little man your are.

    • Anonymous

      Operating Systems.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Borut-Bezjak/100001243812424 Borut Bezjak

      Game consoles

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Borut-Bezjak/100001243812424 Borut Bezjak

      Office software

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Borut-Bezjak/100001243812424 Borut Bezjak

      Aesthetics of their mobile OS

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Borut-Bezjak/100001243812424 Borut Bezjak

      Listening to users wants and likes

    • Guest

      Shareholder value destruction.

    • Anonymous

      I concede they are better at incorporating rootkit spyware, see Carrier IQ.

      So natural language interface and spying.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3EDAVG3ETGVFRMCOKQXREHVTG4 Kenneth Gordon

      Servers

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3EDAVG3ETGVFRMCOKQXREHVTG4 Kenneth Gordon

      Browsers

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3EDAVG3ETGVFRMCOKQXREHVTG4 Kenneth Gordon

      Keyboards

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3EDAVG3ETGVFRMCOKQXREHVTG4 Kenneth Gordon

      Mice – ones that function over ones that look pretty..

    • Anonymous

      Cloud infrastructure.

  • Justfortherecord

    IPHONE S is IPHONE 4.1 lets be serious for a moment. If you looked at the event that released IPHONE S it was really a blip people were expecting IPHONE 5 another game changer…..not quite.  It should have been a software update. The Apple community was expecting and the Journalist and financial community was expecting the IPHONE 5 and they got the IPHONE S (S probably denotes Siri?) So if they have slightly updated hardware specs but still the same antenna layout, etc. minor updates here and there. But nothing that would cause it to be ground breaking.

    Previous postings here and elsewhere have already shown that while Siri might be cool for the “IPHONE” is not groundbreaking. Since Siri was the only major advancement for the IPHONE media outlets had no choice to play up Siri because not much else is going on with the IPHONE S. Majority of media and financial outlets have banked on Apples popularity so they are equally playing it up a term “Group Think” comes to mind and “Folk Wisdom.” Another one is the bandwagon effect.

    Windows Phone 7 and some overseas models from Japan and elsewhere have had voice recognition. So voice recognition is not a big to do unless your Apple since anything they say is gold. Apple is still riding high on their previous IPHONE debut but as we see the competition is catching up and passing Apple in many ways in regards to hardware spec, service, and usability.

    The majority of people who still clamor for the IPHONE are the crowd dubbed “I wanna be like everyone else” or “I just want to fit in.” The people out there who have the IPHONE or other Apple product are so in bed with Apple that they think that anyone bashing Apple is like bashing them personally. So, it is natural for you to get that reaction from a Apple fan boy or any fan boy or fan girl because they see it as an attack on them personally. An the more Apple Fanboy bashing they propagate shows that they are the most deficient and insecure when it comes to self esteem part because it denotes that they want to be long to “I wanna belong to something.” The want to be assured and secure in the purchase and investment is the right one regardless of whether they personally agree with the overall message or not.

    Apple is dying because it can no longer innovate when they exploited a weakness in a market that was being under served. Here in America our phones suck they lack imagination form and function. Being in Japan and South Korea. The kinds of phones I have had the pleasure and dismay of using are more advanced and more useful then an IPHONE and much more aesthetically pleasing than the IPHONE.

    Apple is dying because it can no longer innovate on the scale that it did when the IPHONE came out in 2007. The IPHONE original was 2005 and 2006 technology already existing elsewhere but not as well implemented in the mobile phone sector.

    Apple is dying because they exploited a weakness that there competitors did not cover well. But now since the competition has woken up to the hole it left wide open that Apple walked through. Well they have bricked up that hole and are now catching up. Critical Mass is approaching and in a few short years 3 to 5 conservatively the IPHONE will be a foot note. I will be kind of like the SONY Walkman/ SONY DISCMAN groundbreaking for its time but unable to keep up with the competition.

    Apple is seeing some moderate success in selling more laptops as a result of the IPHONE success but it wont last for long. The will be again just another technology company offering a point of view on where technology is and where it will be.

    I would seriously like to see the same offering of phones that are offered globally rather the ones only offered here. We are seriously behind in terms of infrastructure and device offerings. Carriers need to get on board.

    Apple is trading at 14 times its value again propped up again by financial investment firms that play up Apples hype to keep it up in value. Once they have a few mediocre releases and a huh but about adding this or having this. Stock price will decline but again 3 to 5 years conservative. Finance guys are only in it for the money and if there are millions of people willing to buy a product they will invest in the company to continue producing the crack that people are willing to consume. If market share dips and consumers and loyal brand customers begin to shed their IPHONES in favor of a GALAXY SII or some other device. Than you will see as you are now seeing APPLE go into litigation to stop or put injunctions on the competition who will be offering an alternative.

    Apples latest IPHONE commercials are all about well “You can’t do this because you dont have an IPHONE” no innovation more just saying look at me look at me… while consumers are now enticed by the likes of Droid RAZR, NEXUS, GALAXY S II, HTC Titan, NOKIA etc…

    Its not a question of what are you smoking. Its a question of whether you want to be part of the bandwagon and group think which clearly most of you are or the serious people out there asking what is the short term and long term and how one can effectively navigate them.

    Don’t believe the hype…

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Shameer-Mulji/1685212657 Shameer Mulji

      Please, do not paint everyone with the same brush. Some of use Apple devices cuz we genuinely enjoy them while at the same time appreciating competition.  We’re not all Apple mouth pieces like John “Daring Fireball” Gruber.

    • Anonymous

      I am glad you brought him up, that guy annoys the crap out of me. For what it’s worth I have a 3Gs at the moment but will get a Lumia 800 when they get released here.

    • Guest

      He’s less of an idiot than Daniel “Eran” Dilger.

    • Anonymous

      OMG I just looked him up. Amazing.

    • Guest

      Are you sure you’re not senior MS management? Because you seem to be just as firmly in denial. Your entire argument was effectively Mundie’s, and he got laughed out of town. All he succeeded in doing was make MS’s SLT look even more clueless and out of touch than most already think they are.

      Yes, the 4S was no great improvement and a stop gap until the real upgrade which is the iPhone 5. Yes, as a result Apple focused on the best new thing they had to sell: Siri. That’s called marketing, something MS generally sucks at. And as usual Apple did it so effectively that now most consumers think they need it, believe Apple invented speech recognition, and MS and Google and Android OEMs are all scrambling to respond and having to dodge questions about it in every interview. Even realists like myself have to admit that on the natural language parsing side it’s impressive, and ahead of anything that we’ve seen so far from MS’s TellMe division.

      Apple is dying? Are you insane? They’re on fire. Mac sales are growing at 20x the rate of overall PC growth, thanks mostly to the MBA that none of the PC OEMs can so far match on price and features. iPad is completely disrupting PC sales, especially to the consumer. And their next foray will be into the living room with TVs, which could be another huge market for them.

      Apple is trading at 14x earnings and growing at 30-50%. MS is trading at 9 and growing at less than 7. Relative to growth and overall competitive positioning, Apple is one of *the* cheapest stocks in the market right now.

      Your entire comment is just one big fail.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Borut-Bezjak/100001243812424 Borut Bezjak

      “Apple did it so effectively that now most consumers think they need it, believe Apple invented speech recognition, and MS and Google and Android OEMs are all scrambling to respond and having to dodge questions about it in every interview.”Apple didn’t do anything special, just normal ads about Siri, because they know that iSheeps will buy whatever Apple gives them. And when you continue that by “Even realists like myself have to admit that [...]” you clearly show that you are no realist, just a fan :) ”iPad is completely disrupting PC sales[...]” Are you serious? You really believe that anyone in the world bought iPad INSTEAD of a PC? You are a fool.

    • Guest

      Right, they didn’t do anything special with Siri. That’s why we and everyone else are talking about it. The 4S sales speak for themselves.

      Apple shipped more iPads last quarter than Dell shipped PCs. Every major rating firm that has downgraded PC growth (which is all of them) has attributed part of the decline to tablet success. Still want to claim iPad isn’t disrupting PCs?

    • Anonymous

      Millions have bought an iPad instead of a shitty Windoze netbook.

    • trashoner

      You should learn more from the words of your God Steve Jobs when he said “we gotta stop thinking that for Apple to succeed Microsoft has to fail”

      Even if your bogus numbers above were true it would take Apple years if not decades to surpass the worldwide amount of devices Microsoft has put out there.

      Three words for you… PC and Xbox.

      Here we see how apple is actually playing catch up to Microsoft.  Lets not forget here that TellMe is already been out for a year in a half now. Of course I would expect Apple to actually improve in the technology even though Siris voice actually sound way more robotic that TellMe. IMO Siris search result of Pizza for example were did not show enough of relevant information. When searching for a place to eat I want to know know menus, reviews, maps, phone number, and friends reviews on it not just half of that information.

    • Guest

      Yes, because iPhone’s success didn’t come at the expense of WinMo. And Window’s share hasn’t been decreasing every quarter since Vista primarily because of Mac. And PC sales growth hasn’t dropped from 5% at the beginning of this year to now <2% because of the success of iPad. You're right, Apple can succeed and MS will be unaffected. /s

  • http://twitter.com/EduardoMLD EduardoMLD

    I Love Windows Phone!! Like if you agree!

    • S Bucklandkerr

      what is this youtube? 

    • Peter Vu

      lol nice

  • Anonymous

    Looks like the MS fanboys are not pulling any punch to say how great tellme is.
    Guys it is preference of if you like it is a matter if choice and what better way for these blogs to get massive hits is by playing one platform against another.
    We te the suckers for falling and playing their game.

    • Guest

      Right, shill. Biased review that favors Siri, ok. Fair review that still favors Siri but less so, bad. We get it.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3EDAVG3ETGVFRMCOKQXREHVTG4 Kenneth Gordon

    I still can’t get it to recognise my home town of Irvine – pronounced Irvin, Yeah it can do the weather if I just say ‘weather’, but’ ‘weather in Irvine’ and it comes up with Dublin.   My Dad speaks with a broad scottish accent. If the english struggle with the accent, god help a phone OS designed in the US, the chassis in Norway and built in China!

  • Owais_503

    why does tellme and siri have womens voice. i just wana conform.

  • http://circuitsoft.tumblr.com CircuitSoft

    Siri is more human like, but that doesn’t mean that is good. You can say find me the best hotel and Siri will say I don’t want to.

  • Anonymous

    I think they both have pros and cons. I love siris personality and natural voice to tellme’s more robotic voice. I also prefer a natural way of giving commands than actually giving commands. There were some things both missed and had to be repeated.  I don’t see a winner tho. Just my opinion. Both feel like a prologue to a book thats about to get good.

  • http://profiles.google.com/brandontkeenan Brandon Keenan

    finally a fair comparison, i saw another video where siri blew it out of the water, hopefully as time goes on tellme will get better than siri with its integration

  • Gzproger

    Both are not 100% for “real” conversation, still need some on screen interaction. But Siri is closer.
    Ideally they should be activated by voice, unlock by voice, and give all feedbacks by voice. For example, just say “open sesame”, and you hear a response like “what can I do for you”, then you say “where is the nearest gas station?”, and a voice tells you: “there is a 76 2 miles away, and a shell 3 miles away”….you can ask “which is cheaper”, and it will tell you “the 76 is cheaper”….you ask “give me direction”, and it begin turn by turn navigating….

    • Anonymous

      One thing Siri is good at is maintaining context. So you can say “email Simon” and it will do that, then if you say “Call him” it will also call Simon.

      Although I don’t have an iPhone to test that, but that’s my understanding. You would need to maintain context (even more so) in that way to do what you describe above.

    • Anonymous

      You are right. Siri does keep context. ITs very good at figuring out native language.

      MY problem is i still talk to it like a machine.

  • Justfortherecord

    Thank you, I appreciate your comments, are you guys who rushed me to protect Apple the same guys who are part of Occupy Wallstreet? Tweeting on your IPHONES? how absurd is that opposing capitalism when the phone you have in your hand is the epitome of Capitalism.

    Thank you, I have read your comments and rebuttals to refute the evidence I have presented to you. Largely your comments are baseless and the result of good marketing on the part of those I have mentioned.

    Working in advertising and marketing and technology for over a decade (currently) we devise methods and
    hooks to entice the user/consumer(you!) into buying whatever we deem they
    should be buying and or partaking in based upon what our client deems
    the next trend to be. Navigating the hype is about navigating
    pyschology. Most of the advertising you see and or the brand equity that
    people trade in is purely that thing called perception. Allot of it is mind games…

    Btw… I love technology being a pretty accomplished technologist.

    Technology should be agnostic – and you can quote me on that

    Apple has spent billions over the last few years to buy something called “MIND SHARE” whether you believe it or not is not the point your not supposed to. Tha’ts the beauty of advertising. It attacks and infiltrates on a unconscious level. Your not suppose to be aware of it. You the consumer are constantly bombarded with advertising everyday, you are hit with at least 3,000 brand adverts or brand reinforcement each day. Than on top of it your are then getting advice from your friends who tell you what they like and if you try something they recommended to you than you are ten times more likely to tell your friends and continually use the same product over and over.

    Companies are only as good as the people driving them. For instance Apple IPOD, they did not invent the mp3 player but they sure leveraged the technology to exploit a weakness. If your an industry insider you will note that Sony was approached with the technology and had co developed portions of it but didn’t go through with because they bought a music company and thought it would lead to piracy. However Apple decided to run with it and delivered the Ipod. That center dial that got all that praise was licensed from Bang & Olufsen. So the inspiring ground breaking design was a clever adaptation of existing technology packaged in a certain form. Surrounded by good marketing.

    Then the IPHONE same concept Apple approached several established manufactures to build the IPHONE, remember LG and its LG Armani touch phone came out before the IPHONE but was considered an exclusive product.

    The list can go on and on and be applied to any company. But as soon as you rest on your laurels is over you get caught looking in the other direction and some upstart or company comes quickly up from behind and pass you. So I say that Sony,Blackberry, Microsoft and Samsung, LG etc. have catching up to do but not much. Its starting to transition to establishing and solidifying customer base and delivering a rich ecosystem.

    @Arrowsmith:twitter
    and everyone else, Microsoft is not dying, Microsoft is in everything. They don’t just make Windows or Windows Phone, or XBOX but make a host and a variety of products that people and including you use just about every day. You cant really escape Microsoft.

    Microsoft has some catching up to do to get the general consumer on board, but largely Microsoft image is a positive one, once you get out of the Extreme Apple Camp or the Extreme Microsoft Camp. Since Microsoft has abandoned Microsoft 6.5 and earlier (one of the pioneers in mobile phones and touch enabled phones, since the early 2000′s) Microsoft has to recapture its existing Windows Mobile users who feel fragmented and in disarray and ultimately left behind. But it hasn’t completely diminished you see the Windows/microsoft/,net enthusiast community band together and port many of those latest and greatest Windows Mobile (such as HD2) to Windows Phone 7, 7.5. Also many user who want to buy a Windows Phone what the latest hardware and cooler specs but have already fallen in love with Windows Phone 7.

    Microsoft’s latest marketing and advertising campaign is a good start it will take few quarters to see it take off but don’t discount them yet. Its too early. I remember that the netbooks that first came out were almost all linux based and now they are almost all windows based.  As well as regain its already established mobile user base and get allot of the people dis-enchanted with IPHONE and Android onboard. Again most people are waiting for stellar hardware (I’m talking to all you hardware snobs out there ;D).

    Microsoft has XBOX still the number one console seller running this year Kinect is cool.

    Microsoft has to win hearts and minds of its people those who became disenchanted and those who stuck it out. Brand imaging is constantly about building brand awareness with out it your company may get lost in the shuffle. Remember no one loves your brand more than you do.

    Feedback is welcomed. Although I will be traveling. So response may not be immediate. I always love a good debate. Good journey to everyone out there.

     

    • Justfortherecord

      Correction LG Armani is actually LG Prada 2006 and Samsung Armani 2007. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1067257782 Jared Hartvigsen

    Walking in the dark last night. “Start flashlight” dual LED lights my path.

  • Justfortherecord

     Tom did you hire arrowsmith to insight riot and discord on the masses to fuel debate. That kind of snarky behavior can be left at the door.

  • Superjonathan100

    *Meanwhile uses Vlingo.*

  • Jason

    come on guys just face it, it doesn’t matter who had it first, the main thing we have to understand is who made it popular is the most important, up until ipad, tablet had always been a fail, and once again apple will make siri famous, who care if microsoft had it years ago, that is not the point, and look at the smart phone market, every is a follower, yes includes microsoft, the concept has been accepted by humans, and every company is rush to it…. wakeup you guys

  • TheReal

    Its kind of quirky that you can reply and set new threads and then you kind of miss the whole flow of arguments with this commenting engine because you can take a whole lot of what is said out of context. how amusing :D

  • Leon

    Come on guys, just accept the simple fact that Siri is better than TellMe. I have an iPhone, I have an Android tablet and I use a Windows PC. Apple, Google and Microsoft does not own me like the rest of everyone in here, I use what fits on my daily basis and personal life.

    You guys need to learn that been a fanboy for one company increases you ignorance. And like I said, I’m not a fanboy but this time Siri is definitively better than TellMe, pure and simple fact.

    And by the way, the response on the better smartphone question from Siri is totally genius and I’m not saying it because it refers to the iPhone as an answer but is genius because of the humor behind it… of course you will have results from TellMe, but, remember guys that TellMe always browse the internet when there is no basic commands.

  • http://wp7talk.com Ricky Shah

    This is a pretty fair comparison..One should note the time of the app when it was developed. Definitely, TellMe is much more considering it was developed long back :P