mac4mac.co.uk

Yes. They tried to change their image with the tag "Life's Good" but nahhhh.

_________________
Power to all Mac users all over the world.

An old-ish thread. Siri hasn't really gone anywhere. Today I took delivery of an Echo Show, despite my misgivings about Amazon and privacy. So far I have it set to do my radio stations, lights, heating, Skype video and Apple Music. Multiple timers too. It may be a whim and fall out of use but one of my kids has already dibbed it should that occur. I changed the keyword to "Computer" to avoid most duff activations (as mentioned above), so less Star Trek for me The sound quality is surprisingly good.

It was only after it was set up that I realised Black Friday is on the horizon and I can imagine it being cheaper. That's what not paying attention does for you

I need to investigate skills in the coming days.

Two days ago I returned the Echo for a full refund. Because it has the screen, it can now and again display stuff more than the date and time depending what you choose. I chose nothing. I didn't want cycling screens. Unfortunately, in a recent update, Amazon had it show an Alexa for your day "promotion". Basically pushing people to set up all sorts of stuff aka access to data. I did a lot of searching and found many people incensed by this appearing on their units. I asked Amazon how to turn it off and they told me, except it didn't. Because I should be in full control, it was not fit for purpose. Gone. Shame as I had plans for a video doorbell, but that's out for now.

I don't have any other listening gadgets so only use Siri but it is frustratingly hit and miss. I use my Ear Pods a lot when out walking my dog, and Siri is useful for stopping and starting a programme and adjusting the volume. But it won't find another programme (I usually listen to Radio 4). It will tell me sunset times up to two weeks ahead but can't (won't?) do so beyond that – "I can't tell the weather that far in the future". Siri starts and stops Timers & Stopwatches, but (as has been discussed before) is of no use at all in stopping an alarm once the time has been reached.

So like the original Apple Maps, is very much a work in progress.

Lorimer

_________________
Mid '09 MacBook Pro 2.66ghz, 500gb SSD; OS 10.10.4; 11" MacBook Air 128gb;1 TB Time Capsule; iPhone 5s, 64gb; 13" 2012 MBA

The Alexa department is on course to lose $10bn this year apparently. Amazon staff numbers are being reduced by possibly 10,000 with Alexa being hit hard so it's seems like it's falling out of favour with the Amazon hierarchy. Don't be surprised if it gets no new features or gets canned.

_________________
I'm never wrong, I'm just less right on occasions.

Did anyone see Hannah Fry's documentary series on the full stories behind modern tech? This week she did digital assistants and understandly did most of the feature on Alexa. It seems Alexa was the first* (Bezos' brainchild) and has a real team of geniuses behind it. Apple obviously wasn't able to poach them.

*or rather, the Polish app it was developed from was

_________________
"If it ain't broke, we can fix it" (© Tim Cook, Jonny Ive)

Core i7 2011 21.5" iMac 12,1 2.8 GHz 16GB RAM OS X 10.9.5 1TB SSD & 128GB SSD

Yes, I saw that. It is a good series.

_________________
MacMini (2018) OS10.14.6 (Mojave). Monitor: LG 27in 4K Ultra HD LED.
15in MacBook Pro (Mid 2014) OS10.13.4 (High Sierra);
15in MacBook Pro (2010), (ex-Snow Leopard); now OS10.13.6 (High Sierra); 500GB Solid-State SATA drive; 4GB memory.