Apple, like any other company, is constantly facing different problems. The company has too many money which invests by buying technology companies to improve its services, but there are many challenges as sometimes money does not solve all problems.
We are talking about Apple's digital assistant, Siri, because although the company can build high-quality devices, this feature is just as stupid and useless as it was when it was released six years ago.
Amazon's Alexa currently seems to have almost all of the market share when we think about smart home automation devices, and there seems to be no indication of losing the lead, or that there is a serious competitor.
Sure, Google has a great voice assistant, but the hardware of its smart speakers is manufactured by a third party. It's also proven problematic so far, and the company doesn't seem to have the right partnerships with developers that Amazon has with Alexa.
While Apple has strong hardware speakers, (its sound quality is known), HomePod is blocked by a stupid Siri.
Google can undoubtedly improve its hardware and provide Google Assistant licenses to various manufacturers, and there will be a wide variety and many more choices for the devices that use it. Yes we have seen it before, it's the way the company works.
However, even if Apple can secure the partnerships that will help it integrate the Internet of Things (IoT), it is not sure that Amazon will succeed.
Why
Apple is not Cloud
Why Apple's Siri is left behind in competition? Because Apple is not a cloud company. It has some cloud services for its consumers, but they do not reach the scale of Amazon and Google services.
Virtual Assistants are Cloud technology, as all voice questions are processed remotely. All the heavy treatment is done in the cloud.
Both Amazon and Google have a lot of experience in their fields engineeringof learning and AI. Of course this experience requires an understanding of how cloud computing infrastructure runs and software development in the cloud itself.
Both companies are extremely good at it. Apple is not. Apple manufactures devices and software.
Apple is also not good at creating pluswork and the development of APIs such as Amazon's to integrate with web services running in its cloud, such as with Alexa Skills and AWS Lambda.
Apple needs a back-end cloud upgrade if it wants to have hopes of improving Siri and competing on equal terms with Amazon and Google.
But to date everything shows that Apple does not want to become a Cloud business.
So to get out of this position the company will have to find a partner who is really good at the subject.
Apple needs a Cloud partner
We have been observing for years that Apple's best friend in developing software on iOS and Mac is Microsoft. So far, the best consumer applications for its platforms come from Redmond.
Microsoft could be a trusted cloud partner, but only if Apple could overcome its culture of "we only use what we invent."
Azure / 365 is a very sophisticated commercial and consumer Cloud. It has dozens of back-end services, including mechanical learning services, as well as detailed data for large data. It is specifically designed to run any type of workload required by iCloud and can become a much better cloud provider for mobile consumers.
Although Windows 10 Mobile was a complete failure in the market, the feature that everyone admired was Cortana's assistive technology.
We don't know how many people use Cortana in Windows 10, but it's there for everyone to use. Of course, digital assistants are not intended for desktops, but for hands-free devices such as a smartphone or smart phone speaker.
Cortana is extremely smart, and it would be very revolutionary and also smart of Apple to give up Siri to replace it with Cortana and all of Microsoft's back-end services for the web and Azure and Office 365 .
If you are an iOS user, you can download it Cortana from the App Store and try it out. It is extremely impressive and much more stable in terms of offering back-end data than Siri is today.
And as a standalone application, it does not offer proper integration with iOS. Can you imagine what would happen if it was directly connected to Apple's operating system?
Unlike Apple, Microsoft knows to work with other companies. With iOS as a platform instead of Windows, Cortana could become much better than Siri, and HomePod can be better than Amazon Echo.
Microsoft understands the cloud complexities
What I believe Apple will have to sign a ten-year collaboration with Microsoft to provide cloud management services to run the next generation of iCloud on Azure.
In addition to delivering the brain desperately needed by Siri, it will include all the services we currently enjoy on iOS and Mac, such as Photostream and device backups in cloud storage or Apple iWork.
Do you like how iCloud works and iOS photo management today?
Have you ever tried to delete and manage multiple photos (tens of gigabytes) or manage your iCloud security copies?
Microsoft understands the complexity of managing cloud storage on a huge geographic scale, while Apple does not.
Is there anyone who believes that embedded Apple mail and calendar apps are better than Outlook for iOS, which is free and works with all mail providers, not just Microsoft?
It seems to make sense, even in the long run
This collaboration will allow Apple to focus on key features of iOS and Mac.
Do we become a little more daring? OneDrive could in the long run replace Apple's iCloud Backup and Photostream, but Apple and Microsoft should agree to develop together the future of these services.
Apple Maps can be greatly improved by using Microsoft technology and iTunes could finally be deployed from scratch to run correctly on Windows 10.
A partnership between the two companies would allow for many revolutionary functions ...
