In what must have been a blow for Apple fans and Siri lovers worldwide, Steve Wozniak has gone on record to criticize Apple's under-performing voice recognition capability. In essence, he is saying "Siri sucks".
He clarified that he loved Siri when it was still an independent app but after its integration into iPhone 4S, it just does not work as well as it used to. Something must have been broken during the integration. He went on to give a few examples what he meant:
Siri Just Don't Get It
“I used to ask Siri, ‘What are the five biggest lakes in California?’ and it would come back with the answer. Now it just misses,” he said. “It gives me real estate listings."
"I used to ask, ‘What are the prime numbers greater than 87?’ and it would answer. Now instead of getting prime numbers, I get listings for prime rib, or prime real estate.”
“I have a lower success rate with Siri than I do with the voice built into the Android, and that bothers me,” he added. “I’ll be saying, over and over again in my car, ‘Call the Lark Creek Steak House,’ and I can’t get it done. Then I pick up my Android, say the same thing, and it’s done. Plus I get navigation. Android is way ahead on that.”
Siri also has a well known list of complaints from English speaking personnel based outside of US. Basically, Siri is not really usable outside of US and it's not able to discern a person's English with the slightest hint of an accent.
No Bureaucratic Approval Process
Another key thing that Steve Wozniak mentioned is the ease by which an app can be developed for the Android market. The turnaround time for an app to be published on the Android Market is just so much faster than the Apple App Store. In theory, if it is so much more easier to develop an app for a specific platform, it should become more appealing to developers in the long run.
We certainly hope that is the case even though through various statistics sources like Distimo, iOS app developers still earn much more than Android developers! It remains to be seen whether that will change in 2012.
