@frantzlight Not sure I agree. I use all three of the Big Three and Siri is holding its own for me.

@andreasduess Well I use Alexa in the home and that doesn't have access to contacts, which is nice. But I use Siri daily to call a few people and every once in awhile it will hear a totally different name and dial that person instead. Lots of fun. The worst is when it correctly prints the right command on the screen then says something like "I don't know how to do that." Ask it again, it will print the same command then magically be able to complete the action. I can only imagine how frustrating the HomePod must be.

@andreasduess @frantzlight I have the HomePod and it is great. Doesn't understand my 3yr old yet though, despite him shouting at it 😂

@andreasduess @frantzlight "It’s a bit of a meme that Siri is shit and no progress has been made, but with actual data, the evidence paints a different picture. https://loupventures.com/annual-... In the article above, Alexa, Cortana, Siri and Google Assistant were compared (in their smart speaker forms), with 800 questions each, in 2017 and again in 2018. Yes, in 2018, Google still reigns king, but let’s look at the data a little closer: Siri was second best smart assistant in 3/5 categories. And in Command skills, Siri took out the number one spot ahead of Google. The one category that Siri performed the worst in was Information at 66%, being 9 percentage points behind Cortana in third place. The most interesting part though is Siri saw the most growth in overall answer accuracy of all four assistants, jumping from 52% (2017) to 75% (2018). For comparison, Google’s increased from 81% (2017) to 88% (2018) accuracy. Early Siri was quite shit, and there were several years where it plateaued, and allowed other competitors to get out in front. Now, Siri is the second-best smart assistant out there, and is closing ground more quickly than any other." - Credit u/No1ARSoul on reddit.

@andreasduess @julianbaker From my personal experience, I can go on a full on shopping adventure on Alexa at home without repeating myself but if I ask Siri to set a reminder to call someone, there's a 50/50 shot that it will just call that person right away. YMMV

@rrhoover they are really great, if you loose them you buy them back in a week. The "find my airpods" feature on the app was an "AHA moment" for me!

@rrhoover Never leave home without them. Excited to see improved battery life! However, not sure about voice-activated platforms. I have 5 Alexa devices at home, arguably much more powerful than Siri. I have no scruples about talking to Alexa at home, but just haven't found the killer use case. What are you envisioning in this space Ryan?

@rrhoover As one of the early adapters of the AirPods 1.0, I'm glad there's no new killer/must-have features in the 2.0 version, so I can save my money for something else ;)

@rrhoover do you mind sharing the company that you invested in, if it's public?

@goceli yes! It's TTYL (they're pre-launch).

@xstex Totally agree, the only difference for me is wireless charging and the ability to talk to Siri without tapping your headphone. The rest is practically the same

@derekneuland will be pretty hard to get it in such a small form factor I'd imagine. the battery tech also probably isn't there yet.

Lol. You’re paying for wireless charging as well. The updated ones are exactly the same a the previous price without the Qi charging case.

But they didn't hype it. How much quieter does a launch have to be for Apple to not be accused of hype?

Why are you writing a review if you've never used AirPods?

@rrhoover @whale I haven't used Jabara but I have Bose SoundSport Wireless (https://www.bose.com/en_us/produ...) and while they certainly look odder than AirPods or Jabara I absolutely love the sound quality. A bit more base than from other Bose products but that's what you want when you're working out at least IMO. I'll be interested to see how Apple responds to an influx of AirPod competitors from brands like Bose and Jabara that are known for being top in class performers.

@niklaspivic666 I fail to see how this is surveillance capitalism in any way comparable to that of Google, Facebook, Amazon or Microsoft. As far as I can tell Apple have yet to sell any user data to a third party, unlike other big players, and personally I trust them not to going forward. Seems like they value privacy so much so that Siri is actually worse in quality than Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa as a result of their lack of data collection.

@iamsebj Well, as Apple are collating user data in much the same way as the (more intrusive and so-far exploitative) other companies that you mention, and considering how they've not cared much about exploiting workers to death: Apple has a Taiwanese corporation, Foxconn, which runs huge assembly plants in China and employs Chinese workers in miserable conditions. The value added in China to the iPhone is very slight. Almost all the profit goes back to Apple and its subsidiaries. That means a large part of the gross domestic product of China is actually owned by Apple and other U.S. corporations. With that in mind—and also that Apple has enough monetary reserves to buy Samsung, Pfizer, or Shell—Apple has pledged to abstain from many of the practices that Shoshana Zuboff has detailed in her book "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism"; she also notes that "Apple's behaviour in that regard is not perfect, with an oft-blurred line between the OK and not OK. Amazon once prided itself on its customer alignment and the virtuous circle between data collection and service improvements. Both firms derive revenues from physical and digital revenues than the pure data companies." Personally, I'd love for Apple to inform the public exactly how our spoken data is being handled; is it ever run through Apple to analyse what we're saying? If so, everything that we say will be funneled through Apple. From their perspective, consider the allure of picking up not only what is said, but how we say it, and what that means for their possibilities. It's as with how Google purchased Nest, and later made it into a surveillance platform, to be used any way Google pleases. I wonder whether AirPods 2 should be allowed into workplaces, at least if Apple analyses and uses the listened-to data in any way. If that data is funneled into the USA, it can (sadly and naturally) be used for far more nefarious purposes than merely teaching "Siri" how to measure and respond to your sotto voce better.

@jaceperry I think that they're trying to pitch you on carrying your Apple with cellular for that reason. have spoken to people who leave their phones at home, then can take calls via the apple watch and airpod combo