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

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

1 hour ago, 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.

17 minutes ago, 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.

1 hour ago, 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!

1 hour ago, Dr Herbie wrote

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.

Hah! You're right. That was smug!

:-/

I can buy search terms, for a higher ranking.

Is that genuine?

If my link get's debated on google+ it get's more rating.

Is that genuine?

the more of this stuff I see and hear, the more I think bing search has it right in the long haul. Now let's hope they don't go all google on us.

I would have given them extra points had they made SIRI plead the fifth, but you can't have everything.

15 hours ago, exoteric wrote

They fixed a slightly embarasssing answer by not providing a biased answer but rather side-stepped the question and provided some humourous answers to a question without a real answer anyway.

This was not even something Apple should have batted an eye to. That's what makes them petty.

Not actually as petty as creating a thread about it. Changing the "facts" in this way doesn't deserve ridicule. There are more serious examples of this practice...

Give me a f*cking break. Apple needs to be called for nonsense like this especially after they were caught hard-coding 5 stars ratings to all of Apple-produced products sold on their online store. It took me all of 5 seconds to post this. I can guarantee it took longer than that to have somebody "fix" this non-problem, which reflects how insecure and petty Apple is.

Essentially, Apple is now censoring the results and for some inexplicable reason, some people are actually defending this practice. This is how it starts. Pretty soon you won't be able to ask anything without getting an Apple-filtered response.

BTW, this wasn't a "flaw". The original answer was more accurate than what the censored one is. Just because Apple doesn't agree with it doesn't make it inaccurate. The result was based on four sources of reviews (not four reviews as some incorrectly say), so yes if the Lumia got higher overall reviews then at that point in time, the results returned should reflect that.

1 hour ago, cbae wrote

*snip*

This was not even something Apple should have batted an eye to. That's what makes them petty.

*snip*

Not sure they would. They tend to be very controlling about stuff like that. Besides, asking Siri which is the best smartphone has always given tongue-in-cheek answers, so all they've really done is tweak the expression match to take into account the extra word. You'll probably find that the fix affects quite a few searches across the board.

Apple needs to be called for nonsense like this especially after they were caught hard-coding 5 stars ratings to all of Apple-produced products sold on their online store.

"Caught"?

No, they weren't caught because they actually told everyone what they were doing.

All Apple products have a rating of "5 Apples" because we think they're great. Would you trust us to display less than perfect ratings on our own products? We didnt think so!

Arrogant? Definitely. Dishonest? Nope.

The Mac community took umbrage however (and quite right too), so Apple fixed the faux-pas and went on to score one the highest ratings in the store (MacOSX) and also one of the lowest (Final Cut Pro X).

It took me all of 5 seconds to post this. I can guarantee it took longer than that to have somebody "fix" this non-problem,

Yup, probably took 'em a half hour at a guess. 

which reflects how insecure and petty Apple is.

Which is, of course, why they're the most successful electronics company on the planet.

An analyst said that the reason Apple beat everybody is because at no point does the company allow itself to believe that it isn't fighting for its life.

This is very true, but at the same time I think that sometimes Apple looks too far ahead, and forgets what's going on in the present.

3 hours ago, BitFlipper wrote

BTW, this wasn't a "flaw". The original answer was more accurate than what the censored one is. Just because Apple doesn't agree with it doesn't make it inaccurate. The result was based on four sources of reviews (not four reviews as some incorrectly say), so yes if the Lumia got higher overall reviews then at that point in time, the results returned should reflect that.

And yet in third place we had a discontinued tablet. Dunno, that doesn't strike me as all that accurate.

39 minutes ago, Ray7 wrote

*snip*

And yet in third place we had a discontinued tablet. Dunno, that doesn't strike me as all that accurate.

So you are saying that we should interpret the results and "fix" it untill it agrees with what we want it to say. Yea I don't see anything wrong with that.

27 minutes ago, Bass wrote

Apple has a right to correct flaws in Siri's behavior, as "petty" as they may seem.

How exactly can this be classified as a "flaw"? It was returning results from four sources of reviews (not four reviews) which showed higher customer review results for Lumia than for iPhone.

So it was showing the correct results, it is just that Apple could not handle that and had to resort to censoring the result in order to make itself look better.

A "flaw" would be if it showed a different phone than the one that has the highest reviews. Not something that shows the correct result but doesn't agree with your point of view.

So if anything, now it *is* a flaw.

It's statistics, what did you expect?

http://www.neowin.net/news/siri-still-secretly-thinks-the-lumia-900-is-best

But they replaced it with something that is completely useless instead of "fixing" it by using a different source of reviews. As the OP notes, we call that being petty.

Siri was incorrectly reporting some information. It's just a simple bug. Apple probably fixes bugs like that all the time. I don't understand why you need to get all gung-ho on Apple over improving their product.

People rely on Siri to provide reliable information and it's up to Apple to ensure that inaccuracies get corrected promptly. This constant care is what makes Siri such a great service for millions of happy iPhone users.

3 hours ago, Bass wrote

@BitFlipper:

Siri was incorrectly reporting some information. It's just a simple bug. Apple probably fixes bugs like that all the time. I don't understand why you need to get all gung-ho on Apple over improving their product.

People rely on Siri to provide reliable information and it's up to Apple to ensure that inaccuracies get corrected promptly. This constant care is what makes Siri such a great service for millions of happy iPhone users.

Again you seem to suggest that it was 'the wrong answer'.  So any answer other than the current Apple phone would have been wrong?

The way I judge this would to replace the words 'smart phone' with the word 'religion' and see if I would be happy that an information provider was meddling with the result.

Herbie

3 hours ago, Bass wrote

@BitFlipper:

Siri was incorrectly reporting some information. It's just a simple bug. Apple probably fixes bugs like that all the time. I don't understand why you need to get all gung-ho on Apple over improving their product.

People rely on Siri to provide reliable information and it's up to Apple to ensure that inaccuracies get corrected promptly. This constant care is what makes Siri such a great service for millions of happy iPhone users.

LOL, you sure know how to pull legs around here

10 hours ago, BitFlipper wrote

*snip*

So you are saying that we should interpret the results and "fix" it untill it agrees with what we want it to say. Yea I don't see anything wrong with that.

Still don't see the problem. Siri isn't a search engine (and please don't tell me you believe that regular search engine results aren't filtered and spoofed), so Apple has always provided joke answers when they hit a joke question.

Or did you really believe that the secret to eternal joy was chocolate?

which is the result of MS TellMe running over Bing. So who's right? 

Now will MS alter the result? I doubt it because Nokia has already tried to stir up a fuss over this.

But would MS do it? Of course they would, because like Apple, they're not above changing the rules to suit themselves.

5 hours ago, Blue Ink wrote

@BitFlipper: it depends; since there are a metrics by which the iPhone can be considered "better" than WP7 (marketshare, for instance), it could be argued that that statistical method wasn't representative in that specific case, so that's a "flaw" that needed fixing.

It's statistics, what did you expect?

They expected Apple to give Nokia some much needed advertising - for free. 

6 hours ago, Ray7 wrote

 (and please don't tell me you believe that regular search engine results aren't filtered and spoofed)

Well Google claim that they only modify search results in a limited set of situations.

Google wrote

Manual Control and the Human Element

In very limited cases, manual controls are necessary to improve the user experience:

1. Security Concerns: We take aggressive manual action to protect people from security threats online, including malware and viruses. This includes removing pages from our index (including pages with credit card numbers and other personal information that can compromise security), putting up interstitial warning pages and adding notices to our results page to indicate that, “this site may harm your computer.”
2. Legal Issues: We will also manually intervene in our search results for legal reasons, for example to remove child sexual-abuse content (child pornography) or copyright infringing material (when notified through valid legal process such as a DMCA takedown request in the United States).
3. Exception Lists: Like the vast majority of search engines, in some cases our algorithms falsely identify sites and we sometimes make limited exceptions to improve our search quality. For example, our SafeSearch algorithms are designed to protect kids from sexual content online. When one of these algorithms mistakenly catches websites, such as essex.edu, we can make manual exceptions to prevent these sites from being classified as pornography.
4. Spam: Google and other search engines publish and enforce guidelines to prevent unscrupulous actors from trying to game their way to the top of the results. For example, our guidelines state that websites should not repeat the same keyword over and over again on the page, a technique known as “keyword stuffing.” While we use many automated ways of detecting these behaviors, we also take manual action to remove spam.

I see no reason not to believe them.

If you search "search engine" Bing doesn't even appear on the first page of a Bing search (bar an image search result): http://www.bing.com/search?q=search+engine&qs=n&form=QBLH&filt=all&pq=search+eng&sc=8-10&sp=-1&sk=

http://www.google.com/competition/howgooglesearchworks.html

1 hour ago, GoddersUK wrote

If you search "search engine" Bing doesn't even appear on the first page of a Bing search (bar an image search result): http://www.bing.com/search?q=search+engine&qs=n&form=QBLH&filt=all&pq=search+eng&sc=8-10&sp=-1&sk=

Ah but bing refers to itself as a decision engine, not a search engine, so that's not a surprise. Funny though, google announce this week it was moving towards that type of results set too.

14 hours ago, Ray7 wrote

@cbae:LOL indeed!

 

which is the result of MS TellMe running over Bing. So who's right? 

Now will MS alter the result? I doubt it because Nokia has already tried to stir up a fuss over this.

But would MS do it? Of course they would, because like Apple, they're not above changing the rules to suit themselves.

 

Uh, so? That's the same result that I get from Bing from my desktop. And did you notice how careful they were to cut that picture off right at the end of that first search result? That's because underneath are about 5 links to stories about Apple's little Siri/Nokia 900 fiasco.

22 hours ago, Bass wrote

@BitFlipper:

Siri was incorrectly reporting some information....

No it wasn't. It just wasn't reporting the information Apple wanted. So it muzzled Siri. And now you are defending what essentially boils down to censorship by calling it a "flaw".

Strange.

This

Exception Lists: Like the vast majority of search engines, in some cases our algorithms falsely identify sites and we sometimes make limited exceptions to improve our search quality.

is there universal get-out clause, and if Siri were actually a search engine then this the same one Apple would be using too.

Let's pretend there was a serious flaw in the Microsoft's implementation of Flash. Wich has led to serious trouble, like identity theft. And instead of fixing that, Microsoft fixed a PR issue overnight.

Would you defend Microsoft? I don't think so,..

So why does Apple get this love, why do you let Apple get away with this?

Or are you guys so insecure that you need to lash out to the enemy at all occasions and defend the hometeam even if they are wrong?

1 day ago, elmer wrote

 

Bhwahaha. Funniest comment!