What is to prevent Apple from taking Siri online and using it as a search engine to compete directly with Google?
That seems to be where they are heading with all this (that huge new data-center they just built starts to make sense too).
That seems to be where they are heading with all this (that huge new data-center they just built starts to make sense too).
I agree though: due to its nature of remotely processing input, Siri could become a search engine accessed via a web browser assuming the computer has a mic (which most current Macs — especially the biggest-sellers, MacBooks — do). It would become a single interface for accessing dozens of services — like Wolfram Alpha and Yelp — and tapping petabytes of information.
I was thinking mic would be necessary too but they would certainly have to have a fallback for machine's that lack that capability (aka, a text input box box). Apple could even do their spin on it and have the question spoken back to you after you enter it so Siri can 'hear' it (Apple has to spin it unique in some fashion similar to how Bing has a background picture distinguishing itself).
I think the main bottleneck at the moment though (and why Siri was limited to the iPhone 4S even though the 4 and 3GS run it perfectly) is due to server load. They simply don't have the infrastructure to handle all the requests.