This is exactly the sort of software that was hard to prioritise before LLMs, and trivial to build with LLMs.
There's nothing interesting going on here, and I don't mean that as a criticism. There's a clear schema, no particularly clever UX needed, you can build almost all of this out of standard UI components, and the problem is well defined.
The only challenge is the actual time input for coding, and that's mostly gone today.
Apple is a multi-trillion dollar corporation. They spent billions on a doomed car project which never saw the light of day. They release unfinished software on an unsustainable schedule. Their software quality has been declining for over a decade. Their design is lacklustre now and issues go unaddressed indefinitely. They are shoving ads everywhere.
The last thing they need is more things to get distracted with. They don’t need LLMs, they need to care and focus on making good products.
I kindly ask that you attempt to steel man the argument before replying. Obviously that’s not the argument, they also made point releases before. Major release numbers means focusing on major new features, which obviously means less focus on fixing what’s already there and more stuff to be buggy.
They had a whole year (well I suppose quite a bit less) and I still have multiple bugs from iOS 26? Including a temporary show stopper? Gah! Maybe a reformat… actually a few, macOS iOS iPadOS.
Claim was that they don’t focus on bugs and quality for major point releases. Well they did. And then you claim they didn’t fix everything - well yes they didn’t. Snow Leopard also left major issues.
Bet a reformat is in order anyway considering - wasn’t disagreeing with your description of their intent, though AI Siri & Shortcuts must’ve taken a bit of oxygen.
It’s not. Every year they spend a whole week talking about new additions to their operating systems (WWDC) and then a whole summer feeding builds to developers. They’re not going to stop doing that any time soon. If big number increases, they’ll have to announce something.
Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" sold a lotta systems without major features added.
Apple could alternate annual releases with performance/security focus and features. Need to figure a cadence of changing the UI that fits in with that cycle.
They bought Siri, and 5 years later it was still only serviceable at setting an alarm or timer.
Yet due to their hardware and market presence, they've still probably got the best chance of "winning" personal AI.
Apparently the restaurant reservation thing was supported, although OpenTable might’ve broken it at some point <a href="https://reddit.com/r/Siri/comments/mhc8cx/restaurant_reservations_with_siri" rel="nofollow">https://reddit.com/r/Siri/comments/mhc8cx/restaurant_reserva...
Quite frankly I think that is the primary reason why Apple hasn't care much about Siri. It's not a make or break feature, very few has probably switched to Android because Siri sucks. Not improving on Siri has cost Apple very little.
Right now shareholders expect a visible AI play. Apple doesn't have much in terms of visible AI, there's plenty of AI features in e.g. the Photo app and Mail, but investors want a chatbot. That's what the market thinks AI looks like and Siri is what Apple has that fits the bill.
Google assistant is not that much better so I agree that siri is not make or break.
Its kinda silly that investors think this incredible technology (AI) is just chat... when its real utility is really doing invisible things (for better or for worse)
Don’t try to use it to do the things you did all the time in iOS 26.
“No regressions“ did not make their priority list. No more searching Spotify with Siri.
The fact it won’t Google something and open the SERP seems a little willful. Had to tell it I was doing programming homework and needed to know how to build the URL. (Saying “Search Kagi“ to run my shortcut is the superior workflow, but I was curious.)
Google is going to win the consumer AI battle and Microsoft the B2B battle.
This is purely because model cost will trend to zero whilst capability will reach an equilibrium, meaning the only moat is user lock-in.
Android owns something like 60-80% of the global market, and most people using an iPhone actually use the Gsuite (Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, etc) from day to day. The EU (and after that probably India and Japan) are going to force Apple to open up iOS to accept other assistants.
Android user here. Google Assistant with Gemini is almost close to useless. Before Google assistant had gemini i used to be able to do simple things like "remind me to do x in y minutes" or "turn lights off" or "remind me that the apt gate code is 1234"
Now most of that either is "i cant do that" or "sure, playing Ellie Gouldings Lights at 200%" (which admittedly was funny in hindsight, had it not woken my infant daughter up and caused a sleepless night)
Siri will randomly refuse simple commands as "skip track" or "lower volume", or the classic "here are the results for 'set oven timer 35 minutes'.."
But it's not about that. They'll all improve, but since for the majority of people their entire life is in the Googlesphere, they will want to run Gemini. And the DMA will even let them on iPhones and iPads.
They are doing fine. Things are much better since '84. The products are greater than ever. You know what, get a used Thinkpad, smell around Windows, then throw a distro on it and really find out for yourself how bad the macOS is.
I do, nostalgically, miss HyperCard once in a while, but just the idea of it. I am salty about how they dismissed Sal Soghoian and Keith Stattenfield though, those decisions baffle me. They could pay them for life to stay fellows at a cost of 100th of a mosquito bite.
danpalmer · · focus · HN ↗
There's nothing interesting going on here, and I don't mean that as a criticism. There's a clear schema, no particularly clever UX needed, you can build almost all of this out of standard UI components, and the problem is well defined.
The only challenge is the actual time input for coding, and that's mostly gone today.
latexr · · focus · HN ↗
The last thing they need is more things to get distracted with. They don’t need LLMs, they need to care and focus on making good products.
Barbing · · focus · HN ↗
Help us, John Ternus.
latexr · · focus · HN ↗
flohofwoe · · focus · HN ↗
latexr · · focus · HN ↗
wahnfrieden · · focus · HN ↗
Barbing · · focus · HN ↗
wahnfrieden · · focus · HN ↗
Barbing · · focus · HN ↗
nikanj · · focus · HN ↗
latexr · · focus · HN ↗
goalieca · · focus · HN ↗
latexr · · focus · HN ↗
nikanj · · focus · HN ↗
newsclues · · focus · HN ↗
Apple could alternate annual releases with performance/security focus and features. Need to figure a cadence of changing the UI that fits in with that cycle.
wahnfrieden · · focus · HN ↗
jiscariot · · focus · HN ↗
kingjha · · focus · HN ↗
adjejmxbdjdn · · focus · HN ↗
The biggest indictment, however, is that the Siri they bought was itself more powerful before they bought it.
bm-rf · · focus · HN ↗
Update: "I'd like a romantic place for Italian food near my apartment" just showed places near me instead.
[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpjpVAB06O4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpjpVAB06O4
Barbing · · focus · HN ↗
Apparently the restaurant reservation thing was supported, although OpenTable might’ve broken it at some point <a href="https://reddit.com/r/Siri/comments/mhc8cx/restaurant_reservations_with_siri" rel="nofollow">https://reddit.com/r/Siri/comments/mhc8cx/restaurant_reserva...
mrweasel · · focus · HN ↗
Right now shareholders expect a visible AI play. Apple doesn't have much in terms of visible AI, there's plenty of AI features in e.g. the Photo app and Mail, but investors want a chatbot. That's what the market thinks AI looks like and Siri is what Apple has that fits the bill.
abustamam · · focus · HN ↗
Its kinda silly that investors think this incredible technology (AI) is just chat... when its real utility is really doing invisible things (for better or for worse)
elevation · · focus · HN ↗
Even this is half baked; just try to use Siri to sleep/stop that alarm once it’s underway.
Barbing · · focus · HN ↗
“No regressions“ did not make their priority list. No more searching Spotify with Siri.
The fact it won’t Google something and open the SERP seems a little willful. Had to tell it I was doing programming homework and needed to know how to build the URL. (Saying “Search Kagi“ to run my shortcut is the superior workflow, but I was curious.)
jorvi · · focus · HN ↗
Google is going to win the consumer AI battle and Microsoft the B2B battle.
This is purely because model cost will trend to zero whilst capability will reach an equilibrium, meaning the only moat is user lock-in.
Android owns something like 60-80% of the global market, and most people using an iPhone actually use the Gsuite (Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, etc) from day to day. The EU (and after that probably India and Japan) are going to force Apple to open up iOS to accept other assistants.
abustamam · · focus · HN ↗
Now most of that either is "i cant do that" or "sure, playing Ellie Gouldings Lights at 200%" (which admittedly was funny in hindsight, had it not woken my infant daughter up and caused a sleepless night)
jorvi · · focus · HN ↗
But it's not about that. They'll all improve, but since for the majority of people their entire life is in the Googlesphere, they will want to run Gemini. And the DMA will even let them on iPhones and iPads.
xyst · · focus · HN ↗
Bro dropping truth nukes.
Under Tim Cook regime, it has authorized $877B in stock buybacks, and is very likely to continue under this new leadership.
The decline in quality aligns with how much capital is returned to shareholders.
stasomatic · · focus · HN ↗
I do, nostalgically, miss HyperCard once in a while, but just the idea of it. I am salty about how they dismissed Sal Soghoian and Keith Stattenfield though, those decisions baffle me. They could pay them for life to stay fellows at a cost of 100th of a mosquito bite.