FEBRUARY 2020 MACWORLD 49imagine an iPhone user looking at the
camera features and results and thinking,
“I wish my iPhone did that!” This year, while
the Pixel 4’s (go.macworld.com/p4cm)
camera capabilities might be better than
the iPhone 11’s, Apple has at least caught
up enough for it not to be the envy of an
iPhone user’s eye.
This year, the thing that makes iPhone
users say, “I wish my phone did that,” is
Google Assistant. It’s past time for Apple to
step up Siri in a big way.
SIRI’S SQUANDERED LEAD
Siri was first released as an iPhone app
in early 2010. Apple knows something
groundbreaking when it sees it, and
snapped up the company that originally
created Siri, before Android and
BlackBerry (remember BlackBerry?)
versions could be released. A year later,
it debuted as a beta feature of the
iPhone 4s.
It proved wildly popular. So popular
that the Siri back-end infrastructure
couldn’t keep up with demand. No other
phone had an assistant like Siri. Apple
had a several-year head start on what
would become a core feature of all
smartphones and, eventually, smart
home devices.
As it sometimes seems to do, Apple
failed to recognize that its advantage was
tenuous and must be vigorously defended.
It didn’t invest nearly enough in its
assistant technology, allowing Google—
and some would say Amazon—to catch up
and eventually pass it by. Now, Google
Assistant on the Pixel 4 looks like the
future, and Siri just feels like a more
polished version of what we’ve been using
for years.WE NEED A NEXT-GEN SIRI,
NOT JUST A BETTER SIRI
Apple has gotten serious about machine
learning and its virtual assistant in the last
couple of years, going on a huge hiring
and acquisition spree to bolster its R&D
efforts. But as a customer, I don’t feel like
Siri is next-level. I feel like I’m
fundamentally using the same Siri I have
been for the last seven years.
Siri is dramatically better than it used
to be, but it still works in essentially the
same way, and does essentially the
same things. Say “Hey, Siri” or press and
hold the side/home button, and it takes
over the entire screen, giving you hit-or-
miss answers to certain classes of
questions or performing carefully
prescribed functions. It is an island unto
itself, siloed into its own full-screen
interface, and yet requires an internet
connection (despite Apple’s stance on
privacy and performing operations
entirely on your iPhone).
Google’s demonstration of its new