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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pyslent who wrote (166191)	2/21/2014 3:17:31 AM
From: Ryan Bartholomew	Respond to of 213185

Interesting! Three points: 1) Even if they're able to get past any public flinch over privacy issues, harvesting local data from a device is limited to the history of and content on that device. Accessing services that provide contextual history dating further back and/or in greater depth is a huge advantage. As the article notes, "Cortana will be backed by data from services like Bing, Foursquare, and others to give it some of the contextual power of Google Now." Those services, while helpful, don't come close to containing the same degree of information that Google Search, Gmail, YouTube, Maps, and similar services provide for people who use them. Apple, if they follow in the footsteps, will face this same challenge. They might be able to scrape local information to help, but it's inherently limited to the device, and the services they tap aren't as rich Google's (for most people). 2) It's a good thing for Apple that Microsoft will be testing the waters this way. If the public accepts, they can try it too, knowing they're not as likely to take heat. If the public flips out, they can back off and save face. 3) Why is MSFT using a human "face" as the interface? I understand it might be emotionally appealing, but it does nothing in practical terms. Having the screen reflect information relevant to your query (or push notifications before you interact) is much more helpful than a simulated human expression.