Comment by dijit
7 hours ago
I'd make an argument for the idea that Siri (like the touch-based keyboard) has actually regressed.
I recall scoffing at the idea of a touchscreen based keyboard due to how close the buttons were already on my Nokia E63- and contending that without the tactile differentiation I wouldn't be able to effectively type.
Even on a 4" screen, it worked wonderfully, almost like magic.
Nowadays I'm forced to have a much larger screen and yet I make significantly more mistakes than I used to.
The same is true for Siri, things like "Hows the weather outside" and "I'm thinking of going for a walk" would bring back results like "It's currently raining" or "Bring a jacket, it will be cold".
There were also all kinds of fun interactions hidden in there.
Now it's "if you ask me again on your computer"; or "I found some web results".
My Homepod insists that it doesn't know where I live too, despite it being listed in the settings. And I can't ask it about my environment unless I use VERY specific wording despite it having a digital termometer built-in (based on the fact I can see it in my Home app).
Idk, something is fucky in the land of "once great" software from Apple.
I personally suspect that it’s because they had a huge hiring surge, in the last decade; mostly brogrammers.
We are now at “second generation” brogrammers, where the initial bunch are interviewing and hiring the next bunch, being careful to select jargonauts that don’t make them feel uncomfortable. They have also established the corporate culture.
Been happening in lots of companies. It’s just more jarring, with Apple, because we expect more from them.
There’s a palpable assault on expertise afoot in the Anglosphere. It’s been going on for decades, at least since the rise of the counterculture in the 1960s, but what’s new is how pervasive it feels. Even software companies, once the nerdiest of institutions, would now rather fail to produce functioning software than identify and cultivate expertise. Ten years ago, we, or at least I, failed to recognize “nerds are cool now” as the cultural trojan horse it was. Nerds, experts, were never going to be cool; the cool kids saw money and power accumulating around nerds, and they muscled their way in.
Do any long time apple insiders here know why apple's software has gotten so much worse over the last 5+ years