Apple's Siri Suffers Extended Service Outage

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watcha

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[citation][nom]del35[/nom][quoteAH.. so Siri doesn't actually run on the iphone][/quote]The iPhone 4s is a piece of junk hardware with only 512 k of ram.[/citation]

[citation][nom]halcyon[/nom]Look, let's just have a witch-hunt on Apple fanboys and get it over with. Quick, quiet, and to the point...leave nothing behind...not even a connector cable. Apple COUNTS on the fact that the iSheep believe in its black magic. ...that the iSheep don't see, recognize, or understand its rat-like practices in the back room. Apple isn't going to just come out and admit any wrong doing, they can't...and let the iSheep down and possibly lose faith? Naaa. For the iSheep must know they're shepherd is infallible.Seriously, all jests and non-sense aside, a lot of the folks here attack the supposed Apple-fanboy, and I'm sure they're really out there...somewhere. ...just kidding, I KNOW they're out there. Blindly loving Apple is no better or worse than blindly hating EVERYTHING associated with Apple. Apple does make some neat products. Overpriced? Oh yes, we know this...just like a Coach belt, Rolex, or a Rolls Royce. Apple is intentionally marketing to the well-heeled, less savvy buyer that doesn't WANT to be technical...that spend their time with OTHER hobbies (sailing, buying space travel tickets, marrying rich for 72 days, etc., etc.). These buyers just want to stay in touch and have a piece of technology that more or less just works. ...and there's a lot of those people, Apple has proved this. The thing to keep in mind is, if Apple wasn't serving that community somebody else would be and the savvy technical-minded enthusiast would likely hate that somebody just as much as they despise Apple now. Don't hate Apple because it went after these folks. They didn't create this market, they're just serving it...with one (rotten?) Apple at a time. ...and they want to protect what they've black-magic'd...hense all the seemingly dumb-@$$ patent lawsuits.I honestly think if it wasn't Apple it'd be someone else, some other fruit. ...cause there's a lot of sheep out there.[/citation]

Apple has come out and admitted the software problem affecting battery life and has a beta fix in place to be released soon. Siri is in Beta, they've always been entirely transparent about that, even at the iPhone 4s launch.

I agree Blindly loving Apple is as bad as blindly hating Apple. Or blindly loving/hating Android. Or irrationally loving anything before you consider the specifications / capabilities. The mistake you make is that you seem to suggest that Apple target 'less tech savvy' users'. Yes, iPhone users are on average better educated, yes iPhone users are on average more successful, but that doesn't mean they aren't tech savvy. In fact I'd say it means exactly the opposite. I own numerous technology companies, I have teams who develop cutting edge software, I use Windows 7, I'm a big technology guy - but I can't see any phone better than the iPhone 4S right now. Suggesting it's 'tech savvy' to root your phone several times and have to install all the third party software under the sun to get it to reach the performance you want, is a mistake. I keep on saying this, and I'll say it again, but technology is not about the journey you have to take to get it to work, it's about what you can do with it. I can't think of anything that I would want to do on a phone that I can't do in the iPhone. I can however, think of things I want to do on my phone that I can't with Android. To name two - watching Sky Sports on my phone, and wirelessly streaming the phone to a HDTV. Siri isn't really for me but certainly is a compelling selling point for some. On top of this, the iPhone 4S is the fastest phone, hardware wise on the market right now. Describing it is overpriced is a bit unreasonable when there are no equivalent phones. If you want the fastest phone, there is no alternative. It's not like Rolls Royce, because Rolls Royce have competitors who offer the same performance. Apple doesn't, right now. Items such as the Macbook air are also pretty much unrivalled in the ultrabook market when you consider all the specifications and price. In other words, some Apple products may be overpriced, but not all - the iPhone 4S is about right and the Macbook Air is cheap, IMO.

The people who I know who buy Android phones tend to be the less tech-savvy people who just want to save money. They may not know that much about technology so think that because the Android phone says 1.2ghz that it's faster. And it's fair enough to buy a phone for less to save money, nothing against that. But to say that it's 'sheep' who buy the iPhone is wholly incorrect. The best interface is the easiest to use. That's why Google itself has been so successful. People (and I see this a lot with programmers in my industry) seem to mistake complexity with capability. The more successful companies are realising that you can have simplicity AND function, and that's what the iPhone offers. Tech savvy buyers know this.
 

watcha

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[citation][nom]halcyon[/nom]Watcha, I think that may be the biggest selling point for you. Yet, I have a sneaking suspicion that most of the 4S buyers don't even KNOW it may have the highest performance CPU/GPU combination...or what that gives them. For a lot of 4S buyers its Siri and that its the latest Apple phone. ...I'm just say'n.[/citation]

I think if the iPhone 4S wasn't faster and didn't have a better camera it wouldn't be nearly as successful as it would have been without Siri.
 

halcyon

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[citation][nom]watcha[/nom]I think if the iPhone 4S wasn't faster and didn't have a better camera it wouldn't be nearly as successful as it would have been without Siri.[/citation]
You have a valid point...I kinda forgot about the awesomeness of the camera. ...but TBH, I didn't even realize my iPhone 4 was that slow and needed a speed boost. ...of course I don't do any real gaming on either.
 

DaveUK

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It's interesting that I didn't even realise that Siri was a beta product (and I'm sure most regular users didn't) until it went down and they needed to defend it.

It's been pushed as a core USP of the iPhone 4S 16GB since its announcement.

I work in the telecommunications industry, and I genuinely consider it dishonest to advertise a key feature of a new handset/OS to push hardware sales while the product is technically still in beta.

That said, nothing compared to the recent embarassment for RIM. Now THAT was a joke...
 

halcyon

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[citation][nom]DaveUK[/nom]...nothing compared to the recent embarassment for RIM. Now THAT was a joke...[/citation]
I'm not liking what I'm seeing RIM do to itself. I wish they could get their act together release a few GOOD devices and be innovative instead of just seemingly resting on their laurels and releasing ho-hum updates. The new Bolds 99xx series is a step in the right direction, but if RIM could actually release this, or designs like it, at an acceptable market price it'd show that they're actually trying to compete in the mobile market
 

bystander

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[citation][nom]chipss36[/nom]I have no problem with siri being beta, and its first release bugs, what I do have a problem with is apple fan boys sticking up for apple, there is a problem here and apple itself needs to admit it....not the fan boys....[/citation]

I'm no Apple fanboy, but you do have to give them slack on something in Beta. That said, they are sure advertising this Beta feature a lot.

[citation][nom]chipss36[/nom]on the flip side to say the 4s is junk...its insane, it is the best built phone out there, metal and glass, not plastic, it works well, despite siri server problems witch I am sure will fixed in time and battery issues, things like the keyboard that works better than any droid, tracking numbers in e-mail can be tracked right from e-mail, just click on it. try that on your droid? I have been a long term droid user that went 4s, I am happy with it, and will be more so when bugs are fixed...siri is very very cool when it works, and I spend less time fussing with my phone....[/citation]

I'm not sure we can consider glass and metal better than plastic. Back in the day when plastics first hit the market, there was nothing good about it, however, any many applications, quality plastics are much more resilient and lightweight. Did you see the article on the drop test? The iPhone shatters quite easily in comparison to the Samsung Galaxy 2 (or nexus, I forget which).

 

watcha

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[citation][nom]bystander[/nom]I'm no Apple fanboy, but you do have to give them slack on something in Beta. That said, they are sure advertising this Beta feature a lot.I'm not sure we can consider glass and metal better than plastic. Back in the day when plastics first hit the market, there was nothing good about it, however, any many applications, quality plastics are much more resilient and lightweight. Did you see the article on the drop test? The iPhone shatters quite easily in comparison to the Samsung Galaxy 2 (or nexus, I forget which).[/citation]

I dunno about you, but I don't throw my phone around, so I find glass and metal higher quality than plastic.
 

bystander

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[citation][nom]watcha[/nom]I dunno about you, but I don't throw my phone around, so I find glass and metal higher quality than plastic.[/citation]

The glass body of the iPhone does look and feel nice, but many other phones are much more durable. The question is, are you a Form over function kind of guy (iPhone body) or function over form kind of guy (most android bodies).

Note: this has nothing to do with anything other than the durability of the body.
 

bystander

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And while no one (almost no one) throws their phone around, most people have dropped their phones at one time or another. If that happens on concrete, damage occurs (I dropped my phone the 2nd day I owned it, but I haven't since then). I see a lot of phones with cracks on their screens.
 

halcyon

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[citation][nom]watcha[/nom]Apple has come out and admitted the software problem affecting battery life and has a beta fix in place to be released soon. Siri is in Beta, they've always been entirely transparent about that, even at the iPhone 4s launch.I agree Blindly loving Apple is as bad as blindly hating Apple. Or blindly loving/hating Android. Or irrationally loving anything before you consider the specifications / capabilities. The mistake you make is that you seem to suggest that Apple target 'less tech savvy' users'. Yes, iPhone users are on average better educated, yes iPhone users are on average more successful, but that doesn't mean they aren't tech savvy. In fact I'd say it means exactly the opposite. I own numerous technology companies, I have teams who develop cutting edge software, I use Windows 7, I'm a big technology guy - but I can't see any phone better than the iPhone 4S right now. Suggesting it's 'tech savvy' to root your phone several times and have to install all the third party software under the sun to get it to reach the performance you want, is a mistake. I keep on saying this, and I'll say it again, but technology is not about the journey you have to take to get it to work, it's about what you can do with it. I can't think of anything that I would want to do on a phone that I can't do in the iPhone. I can however, think of things I want to do on my phone that I can't with Android. To name two - watching Sky Sports on my phone, and wirelessly streaming the phone to a HDTV. Siri isn't really for me but certainly is a compelling selling point for some. On top of this, the iPhone 4S is the fastest phone, hardware wise on the market right now. Describing it is overpriced is a bit unreasonable when there are no equivalent phones. If you want the fastest phone, there is no alternative. It's not like Rolls Royce, because Rolls Royce have competitors who offer the same performance. Apple doesn't, right now. Items such as the Macbook air are also pretty much unrivalled in the ultrabook market when you consider all the specifications and price. In other words, some Apple products may be overpriced, but not all - the iPhone 4S is about right and the Macbook Air is cheap, IMO.The people who I know who buy Android phones tend to be the less tech-savvy people who just want to save money. They may not know that much about technology so think that because the Android phone says 1.2ghz that it's faster. And it's fair enough to buy a phone for less to save money, nothing against that. But to say that it's 'sheep' who buy the iPhone is wholly incorrect. The best interface is the easiest to use. That's why Google itself has been so successful. People (and I see this a lot with programmers in my industry) seem to mistake complexity with capability. The more successful companies are realising that you can have simplicity AND function, and that's what the iPhone offers. Tech savvy buyers know this.[/citation]
You make a some valid points but from what I've seen, and I'm really an Apple kinda guy, a lot of the iPhone users are not the tech savvy buyers you suggest. I like my iPhone and as soon as its feasible (in May) I'll probably get a 4S and give my 4 to my daughter. I understand the 'just wanting something that works'...that's why I went back to my iPhone. Again, though, I've seen a lot of iSheep who just don't care about the technology and there is nothing, nothing, at all wrong with that...in fact, its probably a more "normal" stance for anyone NOT in the tech industry. I would never bother rooting my phone to get it to do something new. I'm fine with my iPhone just the way it is.

Its just that I clearly see both sides of the fence...or at least I try to.
 

joellim

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[citation][nom]halcyon[/nom]I had been wondering how long it was going to take for this to happen. ...a lot sooner than I had expected and for a lot longer than I would have expected. Well, at least its fixed.[/citation]

I LOLed at that...looks like apple will need to update or schedule maintanence for siri's servers every month or so and everyone will say its siri's time of the month!!!
 

halcyon

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[citation][nom]joellim[/nom]I LOLed at that...looks like apple will need to update or schedule maintanence for siri's servers every month or so and everyone will say its siri's time of the month!!![/citation]
Wait...are...you...implying Siri was on the r@g? LOL.
 

bv90andy

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[citation][nom]eo6564[/nom]Siri, why do some people not understand what 'beta' means?[/citation]
Because recently companies have been using "Beta" software as marketing strategy. From Game developers releasing "beta" to the general public as a "demo" to Apple using Siri Beta as the main selling point for the new iphone.
 

bystander

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[citation][nom]bv90andy[/nom]Because recently companies have been using "Beta" software as marketing strategy. From Game developers releasing "beta" to the general public as a "demo" to Apple using Siri Beta as the main selling point for the new iphone.[/citation]

What other companies have done this out of curiosity?
 

del35

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Well, you trust Google, don't ya? :D But analogy is good, I agree.

While I trust Google with some of my data, it is not at all like trusting a company like Apple with its history of litigiousness. Apple is primarily about ripping off customers and posing as being user friendly. Google at least is promoting open standards, and does not want to control your life like Apple with its locked-down coffins. That doesn't mean that we should trust
Google either.
 

halcyon

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[citation][nom]del35[/nom] Apple is primarily about ripping off customers and posing as being user friendly....does not want to control your life like Apple with its locked-down coffins. [/citation]

While I like Apple products and own several (gasp, the crime of it), I can not find enough flaw with your statement to argue against it. Apple, especially recently, seems to be working diligently to allow this viewpoint to become more and more common.
 

halcyon

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[citation][nom]WhatsHappening[/nom]My Siri is STILL not working![/citation]
She's still on the r@g...it can take a few days. Be patient and be nice to her...you don't want her to get upset.
 
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