Woz recently spoke to a local paper in upstate New York about Siri now and what Siri was like before Apple purchased it. He thinks that Siri was more accurate and a better product before but still sees the potential for that to change over time.
Before Apple purchased Siri from co-founder Dag Kittlaus and his other partners, it was a standalone App Store app that you could download on your iPhone for free.
On a trip to a rescued horse farm in New York, Woz talked briefly to a local paper about how he thinks Siri was a more viable tool before Apple's acquisition.
“A lot of people say Siri. I say poo-poo,” Wozniak said. “I was using it to make reservations long before Apple bought it.”“I would say, ‘Siri, what are the five largest lakes in California?’ and it would come up, one, two, three, four, five. And I would ask ‘What are the prime numbers greater than 87?’ and they would come up all in a row. That was pretty incredible,” Wozniak said.“Then Apple bought Siri,” he said. He then paused, lifted his right hand and gave it a big thumbs down.“‘What are the largest lakes in California?’ I’d get all these lakefront properties. And I’d say ‘What are the prime numbers greater than 87?’ And I’d get prime rib,” Wozniak said.
Woz thinks Siri is still the future and will eventually become how we interact with technology. Voice recognition software in general, according to Woz, will continue to get better and better.
He is right on with most of his points. The way Siri's behavior changed after the acquisition of Siri may have a lot to do with how Apple chooses to handle data opposed to how it was handled as a standalone app. A lot of those preferences and hierarchies can probably be tweaked and changed. Apple may have thought most people would be more interested in prime rib and food than prime numbers, so they prioritized Siri to think in that way. Of course, that's just my own theory.
It'll definitely be interesting to see how Siri progresses through new iterations of iOS and how competitors will choose to compete with other types of voice recognition software in the near future.
Source: Times Union via 9to5Mac
