Siri, what do you think of Microsoft?

By Tom Warren, on 14th Oct 11 9:45 pm with 114 Comments

Unless you’ve been living under a rock then you’ll have heard that Apple’s iPhone 4S went on sale across the world today.

Apple has introduced its own voice assistant with the 4S that responds to questions and commands. We thought we’d ask it a few Microsoft related questions.

Thanks to Timan for the screenshots

Siri on Microsoft

  • Anonymous

    No, the iphone 4 didn’t go on sale today. The iPhone 4S went on sale today. 

    • Anonymous

      Whatever, same thing! haha

    • http://twitter.com/majankajan majankajan

      Apple and Anroid has got Dual Core.

      Have you had you fooled by Microsoft’s PR department. That it would not be needed. What a joke. LOL

    • Anonymous

      BEWARE: “majankajan” a.k.a “casandrasdream” is known troll on internet, I advise moderator to take a notice!

    • Anonymous

      Technicalities :) I am sure every iPhone 4 will be on par with every iPhone 4S once owners apply the upgrade.

      Somebody should mention that to the 4 million or so who are clamoring to get one! I think it’s hillariously sad that our society has become so brain numb that they’d be willing to pay for something most of them can get for free. And you know early adopters all are weilding an iPhone 4 not a 3G or 3GS…

    • Anonymous

      I saw one article headline about people waiting over 2 weeks in front of Apple stores for the new iPhone.  I honestly don’t understand that, it wasn’t even announced yet back then.  If you are that fanatical, you might as well write Apple a check for $100,000,000 to cover all your future Apple purchases that you already know you will make.  I may be an MS fanboy, but I don’t mind waiting a few months for deals (got my Focus for free on contract) and I certainly would never decide to buy something before its even shown.

    • Anonymous

      Think about that for a moment. If they are waiting for 2 weeks, they must be:

      * unemployed – how can they afford an iPhone?
      * taking 2 weeks off from work – how can they afford to lose 2 weeks salary and in addition not get fired?

      Something about this stuff is VERY off.

    • Guest

      In my city, people were getting up to $250 on CL just to stand in line for these morons who apparently can’t wait a day or two to get one themselves.

    • Rebiok

      maybe Apple paid them?

    • http://www.winrumors.com Tom W

      Sorry they’re so alike I got confused ;)

    • IFan

      I even found that was funny 

  • Anonymous

    Hmm. Just as expected: as smug as most of its owners.

    • Anonymous

      Post of the day!

    • http://www.vastyles.com/ Tim

      Tom needs to post his wp7 user stats for his website :P would be worth a laugh.

    • ElCabri

      could have been worse.  “I think differently” is actually elegant enough.  I suspect only the top-left and bottom-right are special, and the rest is just improvised.

  • http://twitter.com/Henryed07 Henry Edwards

    “the one your holding” – As arrogant as they have always been

    • Jinge

      Come on, if it has been MS, you would have say “holy shit it is true!”
      Laugh, it is funny!

    • http://twitter.com/ParkerReno Parker Ciambrone

      but imagine when the WP7 owner asks siri a question (the iPhone owner is holding the iPhone) and is holding his WP7.  Guess you didn’t think about that, Apple/

    • http://www.braincrash.it BrainCrash

      Smart…, now we can trick those smugs :)

    • http://twitter.com/amootpoint moot_techtalk

      Not arrogant.  Stating the fact plainly.

    • Anonymous

      An opinion on product can never be a fact as it boils down to personal preference.  

    • http://twitter.com/ArturoRyes Arturo Ryes

      it may be arrogant, but i think if you do not think your products are the best then it is because either you do not believe enough in yourself or in what you do.

  • Anonymous

    Think differently does not mean better :)

    • Guest

      Nope, it means think expensively.

    • Anonymous

      Because windows phones get cheaper than $0?

    • Anonymous

      ddaaarrrr… 

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UWVRPJYQFEG7ZCHPD7LDPBR2CM LWSJR

    Love it!

    Here’s hoping that Microsoft will ramp up Tellme to surpass the functionality of Siri when Apollo is ready to launch.

    • AlienSix

      Siri Says: Don’t hold your breath.  

    • Guest

      As people are quickly finding out post Apple’s demo, siri says a lot of stupid shit.

    • Anonymous

      But at least it say something not like tell me which will say sorry didn’t catch that.

    • Guest

      @ JRtorrents

      Tellme is much more than just the mobile client. If you’re going to criticize it, at least understand it first. Tellme’s backend is powering many large F500 companies, Xbox, and a lot of other things. What you’re referring to is just the current WP7 implementation of the technology.

    • Anonymous

      Oh thanks for clarifying jrtorrents. Now that you explained, I think it is a much better product, I wish I knew it powered many large F500 companies before, that makes all the difference. I totally see the product differently know. 

    • Rarrps

      Microsoft’s “Milo” interactive video experiment comes to mind. May be Siri is an inspiration from that. Siri is like the first step of Milo which Microsoft could have implemented before Apple.

  • http://twitter.com/glen_george Glen George

    LMAO. Siri knows its pop-culture references well. 

  • http://twitter.com/glen_george Glen George

    Nope. Most of the upgraders are 3GS/3G or new customers. Of course u will find fanatics who will sell their iPhone 4 and get this. But its a logical upgrade for 3GS people. Same thing outside, definitely not the same in performance.

  • http://twitter.com/oolong2 oolong2

    Microsoft has been working on speech FOREVER They’ve also been working on search algorithyms for a long time with Bing.

    Siri seems to just combine those two things.   If shouldn’t be a problem for Microsoft to provide something similar.

    Although the way it should be done is to have an API that will allow deep hooks into the apps you install.  So the more apps you have the smarter it becomes.

    • Abid

      You know, siri wasn’t made by Apple. Apple aquired the software in 2007 or 2008.

    • http://twitter.com/oolong2 oolong2

      I do know, just like they acquired FingerWorks prior to coming out with the iPhone.

    • Anonymous

      They acquired exclusive rights and bundling in Ios, they have not acquired Siri.

    • Anonymous

      Semantics! LOL exclusive rights is worse than an full acquistion. Basically they’re locked in a contract and they live and die by the success of the iPhone 4S not the whole product line.

      Interestingly enough, I see Siri being more successful on the laptop and would actually give a much needed boost in the arm to the laptop/desktop business. They are typically in more controlled in environments and are less prone to background noise problems.

    • Anonymous

      2010

    • Anonymous

      Hotmail,Kinect et all were all acquired by Microsoft yet they take credit for its success.

    • http://twitter.com/oolong2 oolong2

      Sorry, but Kinect was a microsoft reasearch project under Prooject Natal.   Prior to that the company Rare was a Microsoft subsidiary.

      Secondly Hotmail isn’t known for being a steller Microsoft Success or a steller technology.  It was free email.

      Lastly the technology acquired from FingerWorks completely made Apple and completely shifted the industry.  I don’t think anyone would argue that it was one of the best aquisitions of all time.

    • COlden

      If it shouldn’t be a problem, why haven’t they? Siri came from a DARPA project…

    • Anonymous

      Because TellMe’s integration in Mango is an obvious first step.  Microsoft has been VERY cautious about keeping battery life a primary concern.  The next step in TellMe will require more HP and more battery life (think Mango Phones or LTE phones after Tango).  At least first gen Windows Phone devices get SOME TellMe functionality.  Only the 5 gen iPhone devices get first gen Siri functionality.

    • Anonymous

      BS. Mango voice features are limited today purely because it takes a monumental work for MS to put together all great ideas they have spread among the hundreds of groups in the company. Has nothing to do with battery life of the device, you wish..

    • COlden

      Yeah, except Siri was available for ALL iPhones versions as an app…

    • Guest

      colden

      And hardly anyone used it because it was so slow.

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

    Siri what do you think of Apple? Think FOR you!

    • TellMe

      Siri what do you think of Apple?  No thinking required… IT JUST WORKS!

    • Anonymous

      User: Siri what do you think of Apple?
      Siri: Before we finish building our secrete spaceship disguised as a building or after?
      User: How about before?
      Siri: Just stay put and await further instructions.
      User: Ok tell me about after!?
      Siri: His hollyness Steve Jobs will come back and rescue us all and take us towards nirvana. Why do you think he left me with you before ascending?

    • Guest

      User: What do you think of grs_dev’s wit?
      Siri:  Saying “grs_dev” and “wit” in the same sentence is a oxymoron, putting the emphases heavily on the second syllable.  

    • Anonymous

      LOL @Guest and yet it provoked a reaction from you!

    • Anonymous

      @ Guest:

      User: What’s y?
      Siri: the second syllable in ‘oxymoron’
      User: Why would Guest say to put the the emphasis on “y”
      Siri: Why do we do anything?

  • Teddy Otero

    Wow…there’s really only ONE useful response up there, and it’s number 2. Except on a Windows Phone, it would have automatically searched bing for you instead of asking if you wanted to search the web (an extra step).

    20 toy stores, and all the above-the-fold results are redboxes? I feel sorry for Mac fanboys today.

    • REDcatDevelopment

      Apple New Product > Good > Very Good > Great

      MS New Product > Not good enough > Better > Almost Good > Good Enough > Good Enough > good Enough > Not Quite Great 

    • Guest

      Hey itard, did you recover your iPhone yet from yesterday’s iOS5 bricking?

    • REDcatDevelopment

      Nope updated without a hitch, thanks for asking!  FYI – it ROCKS hard, mango is almost as good, likely catch up to iOS somewhere after Tango, maybe around Apollo.  

    • AlienSix

      Much better then my MANGO update :(  Sadly I am not alone:

      http://wmpoweruser.com/tons-of-mango-issues-being-reported/

    • Anonymous

      ahh I see you hate your trolling flakes today

    • Jorge1

      Wow can’t wait for WP fandango!

    • Mark

      Uh oh, looks like you offended a Mac fanboy. Teddy, one of the trolls latest aliases REDcat.

    • Biased

      “Good > Very Good > Great”…  Logically, this makes no sense…  Good is not greater than Very Good which is not greater than GREAT.

      You were closer with “MS New Product > Not good enough… “  At least this is logically correct…

      I think someone skipped their Algebra class today, huh?  Go back to class 

    • REDcatDevelopment

      In this case “>” represents movement not value which in web semantics is quite common nomenclature but you appear to be one who suffers from criminally literal cognitive thinking which may explain why most find you boring, which does not make you a bad person, just one with a vexing personality.  

  • Anonymous

    Partially out of boredom I’ve been messing with TellMe on Windows Phone for the last while and it actually works fairly well. MS really should have advertised it before Siri came out. I have no idea which one’s better but they both seem pretty cool

    • COlden

      Totally different. Siri does a lot more. Microsoft needs to work hard to compete!

    • Anonymous

      MSFT is already working on that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-3XWl4srng

    • http://twitter.com/ChrisJGarner Christopher Garner

      Judging by how quick Microsoft is going from concept to market, I look forward to using this in 2017.

    • Anonymous

      Lots of these things are possible in a vacuum. This is one of those feel good videos that R&D puts together to go into the board room and ask for $$ to go forward and build the fractions that pass QA.

      Microsoft knows where it needs to be in this space. They’re trying to build something that works across tablets, laptops, desktops, kinects/xbox, in car and WP. Adds to the complexity and opens the door to companies like apple to release a tiny fraction of a technology on 1 device and claim they were first when in reality they [apple] are about 10 years late to this part of the game at least.

    • COlden

      I’m sure they are working on it, but the guy claimed there was little difference between the two… there clearly is a long way to go!

      I’m using WP7.5 as we speak, I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s just not Siri.

    • BalstieG

      @ArrowSmith:disqus : So what are you saying with this video… MS is going to make a SIri like product for fat and ugly people?

    • Anonymous

      Siri does a lot more and it uses real world language.  I like TellMe and I use it to dictate text messages/chat sessions with friends/co-workers while I’m driving or reading etc.  Siri get’s things done in the Calendar and it can set “reminders” that are triggered by time and GPS.

      Siri is MUCH better but it was before Apple even bought it.  The winner will be the one that get’s the functionality just right WITHOUT requiring a data connection for it to work properly.

    • Alombelino

      @ArrowSmith:disqus : “Everyone in the world wants to own Apple products even if they can’t afford it yet”.
      Not me, I have no desire to purchase any apple products, and I can afford them.

      I’ll chose MS everytime, as my experience has been fantastic with MS products.
      And I’m an individual, MS doesn’t use the group think (Isheep) propaganda that Apple does.

  • http://twitter.com/goofbox Ramanan

    It is a really sad that Apple is only allowing Siri to be on the 4S; YES I know there is potential for others to get it as well but ….commmmon! okay fine I understand Siri is CPU intensive but atleast they could have allowed the iPhone 4 users to experience it. I love my Samsung focus and I love MS even more because even though the hardware is like 2 years old; Mango runs beautifully and that goes to show MS is not just trying to brain fumblingly rape you.  

    • Guest

      LOL, Your girlfriend wish she would be screwed so well: 

      Apple iPhone again tops J.D. Power satisfaction ranking again: 
      http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214790/Apple_s_iPhone_again_tops_J.D._Power_satisfaction_ranking

    • Guest

      Your reply has nothing to do with his comment. Try reading.

    • AlienSix

      Where as states Ramanan: “MS is not just trying to brain fumblingly rape you.”  to allude Apple is screwing over the customers in a way that is neither fair or proper but as “Guest” has point out in a cleaver response Apple customers are quite satisfied with there dealing with Apple and its products so much so that in fact if they are being “raped” then like Ramanan girlfriend it is one that being performed so well it people are lining up and wait for it.  Obviously your below the bell curve intellectually which made it difficult to follow the repartee between the post but that is ok the world need dish washer too.  

    • Anonymous

      Yes, its CPU intensive, but until Apple bundled it in iOS people with 3gs’ could download and run it from the app store.

      Not including it for everyone in iO 5is clearly just a money grab to get people to upgrade. 

    • Anonymous

      Especially considering the iPad2 is more powerful than the iPhone 4S.  

      I don’t like how Apple takes developer features and integrates those features into their phones.  At least in this situation (unlike the Camera button app) they actually BOUGHT out the app developer of Siri instead of just black listing the app and recreating the functionality on their own.

    • Anonymous

      I doubt siri’s speech recognition and its AI ability is loaded on the phone. It is more likely connected to Apple’s server that to all the loading part. The phone just do what the server tells it to do. If I am right, even the first iPhone should have enough power to use siri….

    • Anonymous

      Actually, from what I understand the processing is done “on-device” it only goes out to the cloud for results. Yet the app was available to everyone.

    • Anonymous

      The speech recognition part is done on the phone.

      From experience when working with audio and processing a signal the audio is processed and converted into a wave essentially on the device. The resulting digital signature (the numbers on the graph in other words) of the captured speech is then matched to a dictionary. In Siri’s case this is where the magic happens, it appears to have a very forgiving matching algorithm in the sense that it filters speech from background noise which is not something trivial for a computer (once you start working with this stuff, you get to appreciate your human ear so much more!!!). 

      See, a computer has no way of easily and consistently distinguishing what is good audio and bad audio in the stream it’s receiving. 

      Think about how apps like Shazam get trumped when there is a slightest additional noise in the background of the song you’re trying to ID. Shazam’s job is easier because they only identify against a database of recorded songs. If you ever noticed in their disclaimer, they tell you flat out we don’t ID live performances and such because the audio characteristics involved with human speech are exponentially more complex.

      In other words a computer can’t tell what is noise versus speech. If there is a blow drier or chatter or a plane flying overhead or a lawn mower say in the background and you’re speaking for example to a computer it all appears as one big sound. Your human ear can easily spot the speech and separate the 2 pieces of information. A computer cannot. 

      There are filtering techniques where engineers can make decisions based on changes in decibles and energy levels but even those, they’re shaky at best and provide marginal improvements usually. I am not saying it’s not plausible that apple may have come across something new that no one else in the industry (and the audio processing industry is loaded with bright minds who do nothing all day but try to figure out ways to solve this and other similar problems with processing audio) but the likelihood of that happening is very very and I mean very slim. Nevertheless it’s still a possibility.

      Once the user’s context and concept are established by scanning this massive and forgiving dictionary, the query is formed and sent to the backend where the query is performed and results are sent back to the device.

      I am speculating but that’s how would in a very high, almost like a 10 million foot level, build a system like Siri.

    • Anonymous

      there is nothing CPU intensive about Siri. It’s just a marketing ploy to differenciate the iPhone 4S enough. Audio and digital signal processing is being done on the iPhone, even on the 3G with great success (shazam and the slew of music identification apps tell the story).

  • Duder

    Well, being that Apple doesn’t have leader right now they company is gonna go down te drain in the next two years.

    • Anonymous

      Keep dreaming, ms boy..

  • Guest

    You know.  MS is to blame themselves for this, they are playing the catch up game. Tell Me was introduced to the Windows Mobile phone years ago, and they didn’t get around to perfect the technology.  Now Apple came out with Siri, and MS is scramble to catch up.  Just as many other features apps that Microsoft letting them hang dry, and the list is too long to list (one is the tablets).
      Microsoft has become a clumsy, uncompetitive innovator.  WAKE UP Microsoft! 

    • Anonymous

      Apple didn’t invent Siri so Microsoft isn’t playing catch up with Apple.  Also, Mango’s voice controls (which work really great) were released 2 weeks before the iPhone 4s.

      Kinect won the best gadget of the year… Uncompetitive? Have you used… I mean, actually USED a Mango device for a day? I get things done faster and more elegantly than iOS and Android users do with less horse power!  More than half the new features in iOS 5 can be traced to Android or WP7 features.

      And as for the tablet game? Yes, they let that dry up and mobile OS’s were placed on the ARM processors to get some usability and power savings but you can’t tell me most Apple fans were disappointed when OSX wasn’t going to run on the iPad.  At least Microsoft’s offering will be a full fledged OS (and it’ll have live tiles!)

    • Anonymous

      There is a reason fo that Guest or whoever you really are.

      If you’ve ever worked with audio processing you’d know that everything works well in a lab and fails miserably once it goes out in the wild. Siri is a gimmick. Let’s see how many iSheeps will still use Siri once they figure out that 80% of the time things like background noise get in the way of any computer regardless of who’s coding it, designing it, testing it, producing it, selling it, and using it.

      This is simply the nature of the beast. Microsoft and IBM learned that decades ago. Apple still hasn’t gotten the memo.

      Aside from the audio processing, I do like the software in the sense that it seems to retain context. Users appear to be able to ask a question then add a variation without needing to restate the full question. I think that is neat. I mean it’s nothing super special just a technique really. Other companies have that feature in some of their telecom and IVR products so nothing new. Apple just decided to bake it into their iPhone 4S.

      It’s funny how it’s exclusively available on the iPhone 4S and not on iPhone 3, 3GS, 4 and the iPod touch line.  

    • Anonymous

      Quite a few people who had doubts during the launch had time to play with it and they say it works .. This is not a gimmick .. Apple did  hell of a job on this give them the praise they are due.

    • Anonymous

      I gave praise. You must have not read my full post. I have been involved in audio processing and can tell you the voice recognition part of it is over stated.

    • Gabriel

      Has it been use outdoors with environmental noises; busy traffic in the city during rush hour, jogging with wind and vibration, in crowded mall with thousands of people talking etc.? Remember all of these demos are in controlled environments and commercials are splice and edited. Many of you won’t admit it, but it’s true and until you try using it in an uncontrolled environment, its all speculation. I can go in a quiet room or tell everyone in the room to be quiet and tell me won’t ever misinterpret my commands. And can you people show some dignity and just admit Apple didn’t invent siri but bought a product from a company that had a good product. And admit that they integrated products from MS & Android into their device. But I understand that this would be admitting that Apple isn’t innovative as you all portray it to be.

    • Anonymous

      It’s funny how wireless tethering is only supposed to be for second generation Windows Phones. Hmmm. *waits*

    • Anonymous

      That is purely a carrier decision. Mainly designed to help them achieve ROI on infrastructure investments. Don’t blame the wrong party for that…

    • Guest

      MicroSuckers do not like to be told the truth they rather pretend Ballmer and company are perfect then face the company’s weakness and push it to be great.   

  • Anonymous

    Why can’t people for once praise something from Apple… Siri works great

    • DroidUser

      Exactly. I was bombarded by fanboys here for just saying that Siri is way ahead of what is offered in WP7. It is not just you and me who are saying Siri is wonderful technology. Even Harvard business review has a great article on it. So silly fan boys can never understand technology nor appreciate it.

    • Anonymous

      @jrtorrents:disqus and @af560ce06540de8d069b1db29cde2b19:disqus  both you just refuse to read. Or maybe you read but do not comprehend. I’ll leave it at that.

  • Benjy91

    I think differently.

    By making all of my hardware look identical.

    • Anonymous

      Apple thinks differently not by making cosmetic changes for the sake of it, but how they do the internals and software. By making the devices all look similar they focus the user on the software.

    • Guest

      LOL. Apple has made the external design *the* key focus for every iPhone up to the 4S. But now that they didn’t change it, apologists like you try to rewrite history and say it doesn’t matter and never did. What a twit. 

    • Anonymous

      You should be thankful Apple didn’t release the iPhone 5 right now, or you’d be crying in bed every night.

    • Guest

      ArrowSmith

      Nice dodge, twit. They didn’t because they *couldn’t*.

    • Anonymous

      If I’m so wrong why does Apple experience like 70-90% growth per quarter in iPhones & iPads and 25% growth in Macs? Everyone in the world wants to own Apple products even if they can’t afford it yet.

    • AlienSix

      It was a repeated pattern that was first illustrated with the iPhone 3 and 3 GS.   So “Guest” it appears you just want to be argumentative or simple ignorant of the topic.  Either case your adding very little here, which I suspect, hold true in the world in general.  Go play back to playing your Rapala Fish Frenzy game on your Xbox and leave the thoughtful discussions to the grown-ups.

    • Anonymous

      It’s clear that apple thinks function should follow form. Case in point, antenna gate. Sure they managed to burry it but someone should have raised a flag at apple and said hey guys this could cause some problems.

      Another case is the use of the volume control to take pictures. No self respecting engineer would ever make that recommendation.

      I am willing to give apple engineering the benefit of the doubt and bet a $1 that the decision was made by either a sales guy or a product guy and the engineers in the room looked at each other and said “OK, as long as you’re willing to sign off on the requirements, we’ll do whatever you guys are willing to UAT”.

  • Anonymous

    Anyone else eyeing the possible meme potential in Siri?

    • Anonymous

      This is just the beginning of  something really great, including for MS products a few years from now…

  • http://twitter.com/tyw7 Thu Win

    Nice reply in the bottom center image.  It dodges the bullet in favoring Apple Macs over Microsoft Windows.

    Just tried Siri and for some strange reason Siri thinks that “search My Opera” means search “my old bra.”

  • http://twitter.com/tyw7 Thu Win

    Check out my reviews on Siri and the iPhone 4s: http://my.opera.com/wikipedian/blog/2011/10/15/iphone-4s-siri-review

  • http://twitter.com/tyw7 Thu Win

    View my review of Siri here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pv9k1j7GIk

  • http://twitter.com/tyw7 Thu Win

    test

  • http://twitter.com/SalvadorRudy Rudy chidiac

    LOL you suckers, you’e just jealous :D

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

    Good to see it doesn’t exactly *insult* Microsoft. Tell me would it be the same if asked about Android… hmm

  • sammy summers

    Apple says Siri is too resource intensive for the iPhone 4…and all the iSheep believe it. Years ago before I saw the light, I had an iPhone 3GS and I had Siri installed on it…so Apple’s BS for you to go buy a new phone is just that, BS.
    Apple had stated the “Year of the Copy Cat” was last year…looks who is copying eveything now!