If you're not Zooey Deschanel, Siri probably doesn't work that well for you. Some insiders have called the iPhone 4S assistant's well-documented unresponsiveness an embarrassment to Apple, and several industry insiders have said that late founder Steve Jobs would never have let such a flawed product reach consumer hands. Yet earlier this week, chief executive Tim Cook publicly declared that Apple was "doubling down" on Siri because "consumers love it," raising more than a few eyebrows. Given the increasingly noisy backlash, is it finally safe to say that Siri's a dud?
Yes, undoubtedly: "Siri's voice recognition isn't very good, and her response times are often lousy," says Henry Blodget at Business Insider. But the bigger problem is that Apple, apparently in denial, is still hyping Siri with big name celebs in nationally televised ad campaigns. You can bet Steve Jobs would have either killed Siri outright or at least pulled her back, hammering engineers until they fixed her. Apple's future may hinge on Siri's success, "but that's still no excuse for continuing to flog a product that's not ready for prime time." Siri's an embarrassment.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Will California's EV mandate survive Trump, SCOTUS challenge?Today's Big Question The Golden State's climate goal faces big obstacles
-
'Underneath the noise, however, there’s an existential crisis'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
2024: the year of distrust in scienceIn the Spotlight Science and politics do not seem to mix
