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by iLoveOncall 735 days ago
> The way Siri can now perform actions based on context from emails and messages like setting calendar and reservations

I can't think of something less exciting than a feature that Gmail has supported for a decade.

Overall there's not a single feature in the article that I find exciting (I don't use Siri at all, so maybe it's just me), but I actually see that as a good thing. The least they add GenAI the better.
1 comments
theshrike79 735 days ago
The difference is that this is on-device and private. Gmail just feeds your emails to Google's servers and they do the crunching. And in the meanwhile train their systems to be better using your content.
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iLoveOncall 735 days ago
It changes nothing about the impressiveness (or lack thereof) of the feature.

Detecting an appointment from an email doesn't even require AI.

You're also over-indexing on the fact that some processing will be done on device. The rest will go to Apple's servers just the same as Google. And you will never know how much goes or doesn't.

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chipotle_coyote 735 days ago
Apple Mail has been able to detect appointments and reservations from email for years, just like Gmail -- and at least in my experience, Apple Mail pulls more useful information out of the mail when it creates the calendar entry. What they showed today is, in theory, something different. (I presume the difference is integrating it into the Siri assistant, not the mail application.)
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theshrike79 735 days ago
The "AI" bit (a word they didn't mention during the keynote BTW) is the processing of a natural language user command to something the existing ML model can understand.

Most of the things shown during the keynote, can already be done with older iPhones - on device, but they need to be "talked to" like a computer, not with natural language that's not completely perfect.

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iLoveOncall 735 days ago
> Most of the things shown during the keynote, can already be done with older iPhones - on device, but they need to be "talked to" like a computer, not with natural language that's not completely perfect.

That's only half true. If you get a text saying "Yo let's meet tomorrow at lunch?" it will offer an option to create an event from it, so even now it's possible in non-perfect scenarios.

Now the real question is: does getting the next 5% that wasn't possible justify sending potentially all you data to Apple's servers? I think the answer is a pretty resounding "fuck no".

Overall the announcement is extremely low value proposition (does anyone really use their stupid Bitmoji thing?) but asks for a LOT from the user (a vague "hey some stuff will be sent to our servers").

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