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Comment by rm_-rf_slash | Hacker News Reader

Nah it makes sense. They know their AI is second rate at best. Cortana implies 26th century excellence. If the reality is a step back (and we all know it’s several), then “haha Cortana dumb” memes would sweep the internet. They would have to rebrand anyway. If anything it was smart to rip off the band aid early.

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No, it doesn't make sense. Cortana was a fantastic name for an assistant, and synergistic with Halo at the time.

The low quality of the voice assistant was unfortunate, but the naming was perfect.

The low quality of the voice assistant meant they doomed the Cortana name. It got associated with garbage voice assistance, so they had to rebrand.

If there had been consumer good will for voice assistant performance before poisoning the name, it might have survived... but when you first product in that realm is garbage and it lingers for a long time, you're dooming the name.

Also, synergy with Halo is meaningless to Microsoft. Most folks do not care or even know about Halo.

Why isn't the Siri name poisoned for being terrible?

It kind of has, although I would argue that Siri is more successful than Cortana.

If I recall correctly, the thing that made Cortana particularly frustrating and worthless is that it did all searches using Bing, and opened any websites using Edge, regardless of your default settings. You got forced to use all the Microsoft version of every tool, even if you didn't want to.

I get the impression that it is, at least to some degree

If the Siri name is poisoned then why doesn't Apple rebrand?

Apple is stubborn.

And to Apple, Siri is to Siri AI as MacBook is to MacBook Pro.

Completely different product.

Siri isn’t in any way a tainted brand name, I hear strangers saying “Hey Siri” all the time.

Asking for Siri is like an automatic reflex to a lot of people. You can’t change that name.

Because Apple doesn't care. Siri is just something that is bolted on when you buy the hardware. Cortana was an actual product that Microsoft is trying to sell.

I don't know anybody who uses Siri for more than just setting an occasional timer or something. Usually it's a nuisance when she is accidentally activated and takes over the interface.

It has. Literally nobody outside of tech bloggers like Siri AI or want Siri AI. I'm pretty positive on AI in general and having used Siri AI now since iOS 27 I can say it's fucking useless and I'm about to delete it from my devices to free up the storage.

Siri is highly useful for setting timers and is a solid 9/10 at doing so reliably.

Guess what, after updating to watchOS 27, Siri "couldn't set a timer on this device because the Clock app isn't installed" ...

Man effing hell Apple

the honest answer is Apple users are historically more gullible. For example, Apple's failure with AI is twisted as a genius move by some, they are quick to forget that Apple had a keynote about the coined term Apple Intelligence and it was a big letdown. So the investment was there but it didn't work.

Siri is still subpar despite leveraging third party AI. What a genius move.

It should be fairly obvious.

Considering how little knowledge you showed of Microsoft’s history in a previous comment, it would be better if you just sat out branding conversations.

Unfortunately, they have also trashed the reputation of the Halo franchise since stripping it from Bungie.

Since I never played Halo, it makes me think of Cordova, and implies 10th-century Islamic Spain.

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