

Microsoft says Windows Phones have had Siri-like functionality for over a year - gaoprea
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/11/23/microsoft_says_windows_phones_have_had_siri_like_functionality_for_over_a_year.html

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rodh257
I don't what the problem is here, if you watch the interview he was asked
about Siri and he explains that Tellme allows you do very similar features, ie
you can say 'send text to bob' and it guides you through that process, or you
can query things with Bing. He even concedes that Apple has far better
marketing around these features, but makes the point that it was the only real
new feature of the phone.

All of this is true, and it is hardly newsworthy. What else was he to say when
asked about Siri?

PS, interview is here:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2011/11/23/microsofts...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2011/11/23/microsofts-
craig-mundie-on-siri-been-there-done-that-video/) skip to 1.50

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quesera
The problem is that he is either being intentionally deceptive, or hasn't used
Siri.

Dishonesty and/or ignorance from someone of his stature merits a public
pillorying, don't you think?

Edit: third possibility: he doesn't actually see the difference between voice
control functionality (a la Microsoft's or Apple's prior products) and Siri.
That's when his senior staff start looking for new jobs.

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jeroen
Gassee says it best: <https://twitter.com/#!/gassee/status/139458990731046914>

That tweet also seems to link to the original article:
[http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/11/23/mundie.insists...](http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/11/23/mundie.insists.windows.phone.had.siri.early/)

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lazugod
> If true: We're imbeciles If false: We're imbeciles.

What does that mean?

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RyanMcGreal
It means: either they had equivalent technology and failed to market it
(imbecilic), or else they don't actually have equivalent technology and either
don't understand the difference (imbecilic) or hope you won't notice the
difference (imbecilic).

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idspispopd
This is hardly an apples for apples comparison. The quality and implementation
of these features are more important that ticking the box labelled "voice
recognition".

Tellme is very similar to the original iPhone voice commands, requiring
certain key words and syntax to be adhered to. Siri on the other hand allows
for quite a bit of flexibility in how instructions are given, or in many cases
instructions aren't given but a situation is stated. e.g. "I'm drunk" will
prompt siri to bring up the number for taxi services in the area.

Despite that difference the voice recognition in siri is also (in my opinion)
far better, a culmination between it being very fast and in my experience
suitably accurate.

You won't see microsoft comparing them side by side, because it's a dismal
race, but someone else did, read it here:
[http://www.istartedsomething.com/20111124/tellme-on-
windows-...](http://www.istartedsomething.com/20111124/tellme-on-windows-
phone-vs-siri-on-iphone/)

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micheljansen
This is laughable. I tried voice commands on a Windows Phone 7 device and it
could not even make out the simplest of commands, whereas an old iPhone with
the pre-siri "voice commands" was at least able to call people and control
music playback. Microsoft has plenty of budget to get some decent voice
recognition technology; it was just never a priority for them.

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foxhill
apple have had Siri-like functionality since the release of the iphone 3gs.

~~~
masklinn
Yep. They (and everybody else) did not have Siri-like functionality, they
had/have basic voice command: serviceable, but pretty inflexible. The point of
Siri is to make the machine work harder to understand the human, not to make
the human work harder to be understood by the machine (it's not quite there
yet, but multi-step contextual commands are pretty nice for instance)

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bphogan
As with Android, it's not about how well something works, it's about having a
big long bulleted list of features.

Look, I want to like the iXXX alternatives. But I can't get behind half-baked
alternatives. "We have voice recognition (that's barely adequate)" "We have
USB PORTS!!! (that don't support anything but USB disks") "We have wireless
support (that's STILL only 802.11g)"

I would like to see an honest competitor to Apple's products, not products
that a geek or fanboy will drool over and blindly think are better.

Windows phone is a really good start. But I still think there's a lot of work
to do there before the average person will pick one up.

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maximusprime
What's more surprising is that Windows Phones still exist. Would be
interesting to do a poll to see if anyone on HN has one. I'm skeptical.

~~~
yread
I have one and I think that the out-of-the-box experience is better than on
Android. Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Maps and Office are integrated in the
system. Everything is also pretty fast and fluid even on a year old phone.

Plus you get the most recent OS version pretty fast compared to Android

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polyfractal
This infographic was posted on HN a while back, but I think it is very telling
regarding the Android/Manufacturer relationship in terms of updates:

[http://c27718.r18.cf2.rackcdn.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/10...](http://c27718.r18.cf2.rackcdn.com/wp-
content/uploads/2011/10/016a_android_orphans.png)

