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Comment by mark_l_watson | Hacker News Reader

Apple services definitely are on an upward trajectory for quality and breadth. Two years ago I thought Siri was a bit of a joke because the voice recognition and accuracy/usefulness of results was not there for me. Different now: about 4 months ago I deinstalled the Google Assistant from my iPhone and now just use Siri. Siri is still not as good but there is the privacy issue. Siri is good enough for me.

I still prefer Google for the Play Music + commercial free YouTube bundled service, and also GCP is my favorite cloud service.

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The fact that non-Apple services are limited on iOS platforms also helps push people to adoption. Other companies just aren't allowed to build the same kind of experience. Good for Apple revenue, bad for us users and free market.

I don't think you understand what a "free market" is. This is a free market. A more regulated market would require open hardware platforms from hardware manufacturers and open systems from operating systems implementors. Only government intervention can force that to occur.

I'm pretty sure pretty much every sentence in your post is false.

I'm talking in context of services provided on iOS, where you cannot have equal competition. Calling that market "free" means you're deliberately ignoring the reason why free market is a good force of society - because it allows the competition between providers to drive down prices and improve on benefits to the user. If some are hamstrung when trying to provide you a service by the platform then free market isn't providing you value.

Just blindly following the holy book of capitalism without understanding why it's good will quickly lead you into corporation lead monopoly which isn't all that different from state dictated socialism.

Following the holy book of a brand, like Apple, will also lead there.

“Services provided on iOS” is not a market in the regulatory sense. “Services provided to mobile devices” is possibly a market in that sense, and there is indeed competition there.

Apple would have to have a monopoly on mobile devices for there to be a concern that the market is not free.

Out of curiosity, what do you use Siri for that it can be good enough?

I use Siri almost exclusively for reminders (e.g., "remind me at x PM to do y" or "remind me when I get home to do z"), and even with this limited use case I often end up with baffling reminders in the future (my favorite reminder is to "make farts"--I never did remember what it was supposed to be.) Beyond reminders I've yet to find a compelling, reliable use case.

It's amazing that I would be having a random discussion and to check a fact, I would ask Google because Google Search Engine.

Google reads the answer in a natural human like way. It works well.

Countless dinner arguments arbitrated by Google via Google Voice by a simple ask. Shit saves marriages I bet.

"wtf you mean the Mongol Empire didn't last long? hold up, lets ask Google about the Crimean Khnate that still kicked ass up till the 17th century"

"i dont fucking believe you, i want a divorce"

"...ey google what year did Crimean Khanate close"

During the 16th and 17th centuries, the Crimean Khanate was an important center of the slave trade. In 1774, it was released as a nationally independent state, following the Russo-Turkish Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, and formally annexed by the Russian Empire in 1783, becoming the Taurida Governorate

"thank you Google for saving our marriage"

Your welcome.

--goes to work the next morning, sees divorce lawyer ads--

Your marriage is very different than mine. Not just because of what you argue about, but because you think the injection of a fact provided by a robot in the cloud is what’s missing from the path to de-escalation.

wow, that is some seriously good insight.

next time I will marry Google Home

It works well with CarPlay. Siri is great at reading back messages, asking if I want to respond or re read, and decent with voice to text. I think Siri is getting better but I’m similar to you in my use cases, make timers or reminders and send messages.

> Google for the Play Music + commercial free YouTube

easy to sell to a demographic that pursues perceived luxury over dollar to value ratio but you are right that Google has built an economic moat around their monopolies that unfortunately Apple or Microsoft can ever overthrow.

Google realized the value of services which Apple is way too late to the party. Kudos to them for trying. But I doubt the same number of people would still buy iPhones if Google one day decided to block Youtube.

5 years ago, I might have had to seriously consider the iPhone but Android tbh has gotten so good that Apple no longer feels all that special. Samsung Galaxy S8 and up are all luxurious beasts. Apple will also probably copy Samsung's DeX, I see this to be the next battleground-mobile desktop phones.

Use your phone and plug it into a monitor to use as desktop. Samsung is not graceful with UI and this is where I think Apple can expand.

YouTube, yes. But I think it’s highly debatable that Google Play is anything remotely close to a monopoly or has anything resembling a moat. Both Apple Music and Spotify are superior and far more popular.

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