Posts Tagged ‘iPhone’

Siri Says the Darnedest Things (With a side of George Alec Effinger)

Sunday, October 16th, 2011

This piece on the things Apple’s new voice assistant Siri says in response to various questions is pretty funny, as the Apple programmers have gone out of their way to offer some clever, amusing answers to a surprisingly wide variety of queries.

What the piece reminded me of was the snide, sentient, semi-malevolent electronic chess game in George Alec Effinger’s “My Old Man,” which (if you squint a little) could double as Siri’s Evil Twin. I provided the introduction to it in Live From Planet Earth, and I do think it’s a really swell (and underrated) story. (I still have one copy of Live From Planet Earth available through Lame Excuse Books, but you should be able to find it wherever better SF books are sold.)

What is Steve Jobs Greatest Accomplishment?

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

Given his recent passing, I thought I would put up a poll on what product represents Steve Jobs’ greatest accomplishment:

What is the greatest innovation Steve Jobs helped usher into the world?
Macintosh
NeXTStep
Pixar
iMac
iPod
iTunes
iPhone
iPad
  
pollcode.com free polls 

Dear AT&T: You Have a Problem

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

And Dwight has a problem with you.

(I should note that I too had a problem activating my iPhone, but that my problem was considerably less severe and I was in the Apple store at the time.)

Rob Enderle Hits Bottom, Starts Digging

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

After years of shilling for Microsoft and predicting Apple’s demise, only to see Apple pass Microsoft in market cap, Rob Enderle finally changes his mind and admits that Apple’s success is due to superior attention to detail and producing products people actually want to use.

Ha, just kidding. He says Apple’s success is due to spies at Microsoft deliberately sabotaging Steve Ballmer’s awesome genius. In truth, his column is actually stupider than it sounds, since some of the Microsoft technologies he holds up as being killed off by other Microsoft initiatives (like PlaysForSure) are among those that most consumers hated. It’s a veritable goulash of Microsoft-worship, Apple-bashing, paranoia, historical revisionism, and general cluelessness. In short: vintage Enderle.

In closing, I’ve often thought that companies could use an executive in charge of the “don’t do stupid stuff” department whose job is — wait for it — to make sure firms don’t do stupid stuff.

Like taking advice from Rob Enderle.

(Hat tip: Mike.)

iPhone App Saves Life of Man Trapped in Haitian Rubble

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Wow.

Well, there’s another reason to buy an iPhone.

(Hat tip: Instapundit.)