CultCast #327 - Our WWDC ’18 hardware predictions!
The CultCast
America's favorite Apple Podcast
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2018
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
- Leander goes to the Spaceship campus and he’s back to tell us all about it.
- Siri sucks, Apple knows it, and they’re not sure how to fix it.
- Our 2018 WWDC hardware expectations!
- And you asked, we answer: Has Tesla become more innovative than Apple? Plus our very honest opinions about the price, features, and value of the MacBook Pro with Touch bar.
- Apple will kick off its 29th annual Worldwide Developers Conference on MondayJune 4. keynote at 10am?
- The week-long event, which will offer the first previews of Apple’s next big software updates, will again be held in the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose.
- According to a new Digitimes report and also Apple Analyst Ming Chi Kuo, Apple is prepping a new entry-level 13-inch MacBook that will debut in the second quarter of 2018. The price? A mere $999.
- One other interesting tidbit in today’s report is that Apple’s upstream supply chain has supposedly started shipping components for a new iPad Pro upgrade and cheaper 9.7-inch iPad. The 9.7-inch iPad is reportedly set to be released in the second quarter of this year (making WWDC a likely candidate for its debut), while the refreshed iPad Pro will come some time in the second half of 2018.
- I’ve seen a ton of sales on the 9.7", and also the iPad Pro more recently.
- June is the 6th month in the year, so technically all these products could be unveiled at WWDC.
- If you remember the 10.5” iPad was announced at the last WWDC.
- Under the veil of anonymity, some current and former Apple employees are admitting Siri sucks, and Apple knows it.
- Apple’s AI assistant is way behind the competition, and a new report indicates that Cupertino’s coders can’t agree on how to fix Siri — or even if it should be fixed.
- Siri had so much promise… How did we get here?
- Bugs and infighting
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- Multiple sources told The Information that Apple "rushed Siri into the iPhone 4s before the technology was fully baked,"
- According to The Information, the problem is so severe that Apple can’t decide “whether to continue patching up a flawed build or to rip it up and start from scratch.”
- Bugs and other problems reportedly began almost from the time Apple acquired the voice system back in 2010. Part of the problem was Siri’s instant popularity. The backend servers weren’t prepared for the demand coming from millions of iPhone users. The company has struggled ever since to make Siri’s code more efficient.
- Lack of vision
- Well, like so many things, it’s due to a total lack of vision for what Siri should be.
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- Steve Jobs spearheaded the acquisition of Siri and the integration of the technology into iOS.
- Siri was unveiled as the signature feature of the iPhone 4s in 2011. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died the very next day
- “When Steve died the day after Siri launched, they lost the vision,” one of The Information’s sources said. “They didn’t have a big picture.”
- Since that time, multiple project managers have come and gone, none with Jobs’ vision. There’s allegedly an internal debate over whether Siri should be a system for answering short questions and following simple commands, or a more full-featured digital assistant capable of handling more complex queries.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The power to learn, to communicate, to imagine, to create, the power to be your best. |
| 0:14.0 | Hello and welcome to |
| 0:18.0 | Volkasi Best 30 plus minute apple conversation you're going to hear all week long. I'm your host, AirFonel, |
| 0:26.4 | and joining me today. He's been to the spaceship. Oh yes. Until security realized who he was and tossed him out in his keister. |
| 0:35.0 | He's here to tell us all about it. |
| 0:38.0 | Leander Kaney is here. |
| 0:40.0 | I'm dying to hear what it was like there in mere moments. We'll have you share also with us if he was a superhero he'd be called |
| 0:49.6 | Dartman and he'd insist on a full spandex outfit and cape. |
| 0:54.7 | Lewis Wallace is here. |
| 0:57.2 | Hey, I don't know about the cape. |
| 0:59.4 | The cape might actually throw off the throw. |
| 1:03.4 | You think so? |
| 1:04.4 | Yeah, I don't know, darts and capes. |
| 1:06.4 | You could use it to fight people though, you know, when you spun around, you'd like, |
| 1:09.8 | whip, hit them in the face of your cape and then you have your utility belt full of darts. |
| 1:13.7 | That you could just throw out at people. |
| 1:18.6 | They actually make those. |
| 1:19.6 | Do they? |
| 1:21.0 | Sure. |
| 1:22.0 | This is actually a great character so your utility belt is highly technological right it was it was hewn by Johnny I've your secret team of industrial designers and every time you pull out a dart the little |
| 1:33.8 | capsule or the space where the dart was held reconstructs a new dart in its place. |
| 1:38.4 | Whoa! Cool right? Yeah I love it. You could be in the next Avengers. Yeah, yeah |
... |
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