Eric Schmidt Is Right: Google’s Glory Days Are Numbered | Hacker News Reader

Eric Schmidt Is Right: Google’s Glory Days Are Numbered

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How much of Google's total revenue comes from iPhone searches that Siri would possibly redirect? Let's not forget that Google gets revenue from a great number of advertising markets.

They bought DoubleClick, YouTube, they have their own AdWords program. There is also Google mobile ads for both mobile versions of websites as well as Android. Android itself represents something like 40% of the mobile market.

Even on the iPhone itself, what does Siri redirect away from google? Restaurant queries. Some question answering queries. Appointments, playing music, setting timers, sending emails, none of those are relevant to this argument. The remaining queries all still go to Google and google gets paid for these either from it's API usage or from later ad impressions.

This argument was poor and full of hyperbole when it first appeared in the scene and it surprises me to see it continuing to make the rounds.

I'm getting pretty tired of these "siri is our new savior" articles. Siri is a lobotomized brain dead service outside of the states.

In canada? "siri, where can I buy a candy bar?" > I'm sorry, I can't search for locations in canada "siri, where is the Tacoma dome" > I'm sorry, I cant search for locations in canada

Pull out my ancient google phone, hit the voice command button "where is the tacoma dome" > loads a google map centered on the tacoma dome

Google has had voice command for a long time now, they just didn't anthropomorphize it, they didn't give it a name and some sarcasm.... they just made it work... everywhere.

It's true, Google did made it work everywhere.

But I think Google should anthropomorphize theirs too. After all, people are used to talking to people.

>But I think Google should anthropomorphize theirs too.

They're likely working on it. I'll bet they're also preparing their legal team for the inevitable lawsuit from Apple.

But you cannot talk to Siri like you can talk to people.

The charade breaks after a short while. And after that, if you want to know the weather, you stop saying "Siri, what's the weather like today?". Instead you order "weather". Because you learned that this is what the "AI" triggers to show you the weather.

I think the question if people want to talk to their phone is not relevant today, because we do not have the technology yet to make the phone really understand what we are saying.

There are problems with Google, and I don't disagree with the headline, but I don't see Siri as the disruption. Google already has voice search, and I am pretty sure they are working hard on getting it up to the user friendliness of Siri. They will 'catch up'.

The real question has absolutely nothing to do with Siri and everything to do with innovation in general. As long as Google continues to innovate they will be on top. Historically all companies eventually get too large and gunk up their own 'innovation machinery'. It's only a matter of time. Same goes for Apple.

Don't forget that companies are in the end made up of individuals. The key is when those individuals find it difficult or impossible to innovate within the confines of the company. This is what you should look for as it is the trigger that results in the inevitable downfall. The individual starts to look elsewhere (even starting their own company) and thus a new giant, monolithic corporation is born.

Anybody with an Android can tell you the threat of Siri is vastly overstated.

I have both an iPhone 4s and a Nexus S. The first thing I did when I got the iPhone was to play with Siri for an hour.

Only tonight did I realize that Android also has voice recognition, and it's pretty good. But the threat of Siri is very real, mostly due to Apple's marketing.

Well all that is true until Google launches something like siri but better, because they have been doing voice recognition and (of couse) search for long time.

Unless Apple has it patented up the wazoo. Which they no doubt do.

(As an aside; I think this is a completely fair use of patents. You're creative, you make a new patent, you get to exclusively use that technology for the next X years to build market share)

Do you have any evidence that they have patents which would preclude other players (especially those with existing similar products like google/android and Microsoft/WP7)?

Nope, sorry. Just thinking out loud.

Their UI is pretty radically new and it's reasonable to assume aspects of it are patented. I don't know of a competing product that works the same way.

The majority of Siri is the result of publicly funded academic research. Granted, that has not stopped the patent system from granting narrowly defined patents in the past (e.g. the famous pinch to zoom).

I doubt they've devised some fundamentally new algorithm. Like you said, it'll probably be some aspect of the UI. I think the Siri "way of doing things" is pretty radically new and I think Apple will be rewarded for that with some patent protection.

Which parts of Siri are so original that Apple deserves a monopoly on them for 20 years? Just take a second and think about how long 20 years is in software. Do you really think that no one else would have invented a similar product given 20 years?

Yes, patent lengths are rather absurd in this day and age. It should be on the order of 3 years. While it's easy for Apple to catapult new software into the market place, it can take several years for a small entrepreneur to market his technology.

Whoever wrote that article has only used an iPhone and the web just for some time now. From my point of view Siri is just a toy, yes, is cool, funny, smart but again, is just a toy, I couldn't really use it in real situation, probably Siri could disrupt the GPS manufacturers market as the only place I feel confortable talking with a device is in the car.

Re-read your comment, it sounds like the type of statement that is just ripe for foot-in-mouth syndrome 5 years from now.

Excuse my english, 5 in the morning, writing from a phone. Will try to rephrase that later.

Well it is a beta product.

I too couldn't get it to answer all my questions but I was still amazed by what it could answer, even at this early stage.

The ace up Apple's sleeve is their full hardware and operating system control on iOS devices. Siri is just another example of this. Third-party software on iPhone is sandboxed in many ways that give Apple apps a competitive advantage.

With regard to Siri and voice control, no third party app is allowed to respond to the critical press-and-hold-home-button shortcut. Another example is the hardware volume buttons, which Apple repurposes for Camera.app shutter control, but access to which was denied for the popular third party Camera+ app for that same purpose. Only Apple's Camera.app gets a lock-screen shortcut. Only Apple apps are allowed to access the carrier's SMS and voicemail. Only iBooks got access to real brightness control (may have changed in iOS 5). Only Apple apps can show a photo preview (e.g. MMS/iMessage) in a notification. Only Apple apps get to put widgets in the iOS 5 Notifications panel. The list goes on...

Google has one advantage for the time being in being able to support more languages and regions.

My Siri can't give me directions or maps in Japan yet which is a bit of a disappointment. Hopefully it'll be rectified soon.

I think the threat Siri poses to Google is that it relegates Google to the background.

People on Smartphones can ask a question of Siri in 2~3 seconds as opposed to typing that question in Google within 10~20.

And if Siri can't answer the question she offers to send you to Google without having to type that question again.

I've never used Android search before, but I hope it's as good as Siri if Google wants to stay competitive.

>People on Smartphones can ask a question of Siri in 2~3 seconds as opposed to typing that question in Google within 10~20.

Umm...Siri is cool, but that's not the advantage over Android. Android has had awesome voice recognition built in for ... over a year now? Not sure exactly how long, but my wife's dirt cheap ($150 with no contract) phone does voice recognition really well. I haven't had to type in a search query (with a 3G or WiFi connection active) since I got my new Android phone, either.

In addition to the basic Google search, it will send you to Google Navigation, send SMS messages to a friend in your contacts, and other things (I don't have the list in front of me). Siri adds to it by having a bit more context ("when I get home", for instance). It's cool, but it's not the voice recognition that's new. Except on the iPhone.

The big significance to Google is that it cuts them out of the iPhone search. But there are more Android phones than iPhones already, and the Android is growing faster, so that's becoming less relevant as well.

Just to note, the iPhone has had voice recognition for a couple years as well (since the 3GS).

Sorry, maybe I didn't phrase my point correctly.

Since Apple controls the iPhone they can make it favorable for people to avoid visiting google.com and typing in their query (of course they can dictate that query too).

That's a very powerful position to be in.

Apple has demonstrated this by making Wolfram Alpha available for answering some queries.

I see Apple continuing on this road and maybe aggregating results from various search engines (including Google even) and presenting them outside of Google's format.

Will Apple open Siri to third party developers before Siri is out of "beta"? It would be nice to be able to ask Siri to do something that involves an arbitrary third-party app. Maybe apps could register to respond to certain voice "intents", similar to Android?

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