14 DAY TRIAL // Recalling the MobileMe fiasco, a former Apple insider reportedly told Fortune that Steve Jobs would have gone ballistic over the lackluster functionality of Siri.
A voice-activated assistant, Siri has been in beta for over half a year now, yet the service seems to be just as flawed as it has been on day one. That’s not to say it’s impossible to use. It’s just not as good as the commercials would have you believe.
"People are embarrassed by Siri," said a former insider quoted in Adam Lashinky’s feature piece on Tim Cook, Apple’s new CEO. "Steve [Jobs] would have lost his mind over Siri,” this person reportedly said.
The former Apple employee was, of course, referring to Steve Jobs’ mercurial nature, and perhaps even recalled the episode when Jobs called in the MobileMe team to yell at them that the service wasn’t up to par.
Jobs had reportedly asked the team what the product's purpose was. The unknowing MobileMe engineers answered by the book, but they couldn’t anticipate Jobs’ reply: “So why the f--- doesn't it do that?”
The temperamental CEO also said during that meeting, "You've tarnished Apple's reputation [...] "You should hate each other for having let each other down... [technology journalist Walt Mossberg], our friend, is no longer writing good things about us."
Perhaps not coincidentally, Apple has started airing two new Siri ads lately. Both of them feature John Malkovich and both of them depict much simpler conversations with the personal assistant, perhaps to avoid further scrutiny.
According to reports, a developer decided to put Apple’s Siri claims to the test.
“If you’ve used Siri yourself, however, you know the disclaimer of ‘Sequences shortened’ is more than an understatement,” Paul Kafasis wrote. “They’ve edited out the inevitable ‘No.…NO.…NO!’ as well as significant quantities of exasperated sighs. After hearing Jackson say the word “hotspacho” for the umpteenth time, I decided to run a little test.”
Needless to mention, Siri hardly gets the word right, not even when it is being played a recording featuring Samuel L. Jackson himself.