Scott Forstall demonstrates Siri on stage at Apple's October 2011 iPhone 4S event, showing the voice assistant handling natural requests like checking the weather and getting things done by asking.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN uses it as a baseline for how capable Siri seemed at launch and to argue the product has regressed since.
“Siri was actually once a better product than it is now.”HN comment, 2023
Forstall's 2011 Siri demo as a baseline for voice interface progress
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> ... because it's not a good way to control a computer? This comment speaks to a perception problem for aural methods. The state of the mainstream art doesn't seem much past Forstall's demo of 10 years ago. [0] Are generations of people accustomed to WIMP UI able to wrap their heads around a much smaller interaction set? [1] Gentner and Nielsen's work described in "The Anti-Mac Interface" [2] speaks to some of the differences people will have to mentally bridge such as: Mac | Anti-Mac Direct Manipulation | Delegation See and Point | Describe and Command WYSIWYG | Represent Meaning User Control | Shared Control Feedback and Dialog | System Handles Details Forgiveness | Model User Actions 0. this video 1. link 2. link
Cites itdijitSep 2023
“Siri was actually once a better product than it is now.”
Original Siri demo showing the assistant at its peak
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Siri was actually once a better product than it is now. Just like the apple keyboard on iPhones. You’re not imagining it; it is actually worse. This is the first ever integration with iPhone after acquisition, it never got better than this this video
Cites itmichaeltAug 2024
“proudly demonstrating that if you asked it whether you need a raincoat, it would check the weather forecast and give you an answer”
Apple staff praising Siri's conceptual understanding at launch
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I mean, there are videos from when Siri was launched [1] with folks at Apple calling it intelligent and proudly demonstrating that if you asked it whether you need a raincoat, it would check the weather forecast and give you an answer - demonstrating conceptual understanding, not just responding to a 'weather' keyword. With senior folk saying "I've been in the AI field a long time, and this still blows me away." So there's direct evidence of Apple insiders thinking Siri was pretty great. Of course we could assume Apple insiders realised Siri was an underwhelming product, even if there's no video evidence. Perhaps the product is evidence enough? [1] this video
