Hacker News Reader

Comment by cheald | Hacker News Reader

I'll admit straight-up that I haven't looked at any of the Siri presentations, so I don't know what is and isn't possible with it, but the simple fact of the matter is that AI like it's being pitched ("reasoning", ever-learning, fast and flexible to respond to natural language input) takes an obscene amount of RAM, computing power, and persistent storage to be any good. There's not a chance that this is going to be an inherent feature of the iPhone 5 - it might be a "cloud" feature that the iPhone uses, but if it's as good as the rumormongers are making it out to be, we're talking datacenters worth of hardware, not one phone's worth.

It'll be interesting to see what's actually announced, but I'm having a really hard time swallowing the idea that Apple's putting a Star Trek AI on a phone.

View on HN

Norman Winarsky, the man who put together the original Siri team, was asked what kind of power the Siri AI takes and if it could have delayed the iPhone today on 9to5mac.com, saying:

Norm: I’m not familiar with Apple’s roadmap and any delays but I can say that AI takes a lot of computing power. The Siri software needs to cache data, needs to access a big dataset at wide bandwidth and needs a big processor to crunch all of the numbers. When we originally released Siri for the iPhone 3GS, we had to perform all kinds of optimizations and shortcuts to get it to work efficiently. All I can say is that it will likely run much better on a faster phone. (Source: http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/03/co-founder-of-siri-assistant-i...)

There is a big jump in performance from 3GS to even iPhone 4, let alone iPhone 5 with possible A5 processor (dual core), 1GB RAM, iOS optimization, cloud performance, and network performance--and that's not even considering if the Sprint iPhone 5 exclusive is true which would mean the device runs on a 4G network that would make this type of interaction even more interesting if interacting with the cloud in some way.

I'm with you -

This could be why it would be available only on the newest, 4G-enabled iPhone. If this was all handled in the cloud and delivered at 4G speeds, it could be compelling.

And you could totally see Apple pitching this to AT&T and Verizon and they're going "Crap, people already hate our data caps, and we already hate all the data iPhones use..." and then Sprint's CEO Dan Hesse comes running over to Jobs "Steve! We'd LOVE to handle that! We can do it! I swear, trust me. We have 4G! It's blazing fast...give us a shot...please?" Hands over $20.5 billion dollars...

Source: http://www.bgr.com/2011/10/03/sprint-guarantees-to-buy-over-...

I would be more surprised by a 4G iPhone 5 than a virtual personal assistant. I just can't see Apple shipping a phone that only lasts 4 or 5 hours with 4G on.

  > with possible A5 processor (dual core), 1GB RAM, iOS 
  > optimization, cloud performance, and network performance

This just sounds like buzzword soup. Maybe you meant something like:

  with the possibility of the dual-core A5 processor, 1GB
  RAM, iOS integration, cloud performance enhancements, and
  network improvements

Otherwise, I'm just picturing a sleazy salesman pimping an iPhone 5 box with a big 'Now with "network performance" included' badge plastered across the front of it.

Haha good call, heck lets just call it 4G and call it a day. /buzzword

Reply on news.ycombinator.com