, Dr Herbie wrote

Initially, I thought this was funny, but the more I think about it the more uncomfortable I get -- Apple are controlling the information that their users are able to access. I don't find that acceptable.

If you type "which is the best search engine" into Google or Bing, you don't get any PR results, just genuine searches.  However if you type it into Wolfram Alpha, you get a smug self-promotion, which I found extremely disappointing.

The internet is supposed to be a great leveller -- democratising information is one of the goals of the people who drove internet adoption.  I find it disappointing (but kind of inevitable) that some of the companies who provide that information have already shown signs of censoring it.

Google and Microsoft are looking better that Apple and Wolfram Alpha at the moment.

 Herbie

Ah, but there's the rub. Siri's not really a search engine. It's a Personal Assistant. Apple tunes the responses to give you the most useful information - or as most people call it, the most useful information that Apple wants you to have. The problem with the result, they'll say, is that it wasn't the most useful information. The survey that Wolfram was bringing back came from only five customer reviews and the number 3 position was held by a defunct tablet, not a mobile phone.

, Ian2 wrote

Can't help thinking that this could be a much worse PR disaster for Apple than the initial answer that SIRI gave?

I think it'll blow over pretty quickly, since most people understand that search engines tweak results and rankings can be fixed as a matter of course.

, Maddus Mattus wrote

Doesnt matter what they did, leave the lumia on top or change the result, haters gonna hate.

True.

What strikes me as odd, is that they are very slow in fixing security issues, but can fix pr issues almost overnight.

And that's the real problem here. This none-event would have been given priority over a major security snafu. I have to wonder what the hell they're smoking during strategy meetings.

Shhheeesh!