Apple Siri vs. Amazon Alexa vs. Google Assistant: Siri Behind Competitors Due to User Privacy Concerns

By Faith Baquirquir, Christian Post Contributor Sunday, June 11, 2017

Despite Apple being the first one to incorporate a voice-controlled virtual assistant onto their devices, it seems to not do well in outshining its newer competitors.

Although Siri can mostly handle answering general questions about the weather, nearby restaurants, travel distances, and movie schedules, as per gadget website T3, it sometimes fails to understand queries delivered in "natural language," and it lacks integration with applications not developed Apple.

Google Assistant, on the other hand, is able to answer most general queries, as well as follow-up questions. It is integrated with Google Maps, which makes travel-related queries much easier to provide an answer to. The virtual assistant is also present in the Google Home speakers.

Meanwhile, Alexa may not be a common voice assistant on most smartphones, but just like with Google, it also works on a particular speaker system, which is the Amazon Echo. Just like the two others, it is also able to handle general queries. However, its best feature is its third-party integrations, in which users are able to order pizza, book taxi rides, and purchase items from Amazon, apart from playing audio.

According to a report from the International Business Times, former Siri developers told The Wall Street Journal, a subscription-only news site, that the reason why the voice assistant is steps behind its competitors is due to Apple's user privacy concerns.

Competing with Amazon's Alexa and the Google Assistant, Siri is not able to outshine the two because of the company's culture, which is said to prioritize user privacy above all, making it more of a challenge to enhance and personalize the product.

Moreover, the report said that Siri lags behind its competitors because Amazon and Google's privacy policies are not as strict as Apple's, and these are able to collect data from their respective search engines, which are used to "train" their virtual assistants. Also, Alexa and Google Assistant are able to retain data for a long period of time, whereas Siri keeps information for only six months.

However, it looks like Apple is doing something about Siri's reputation. The company has recently unveiled the HomePod, a smart home speaker, at the recently concluded Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDZ). Apple boasts of this new Siri-supported speakers' ability to, not only play songs through Apple Music, but also control smart home devices, such as smart thermostats and lightbulbs.

According to Fortune, while Apple did not mention their competitors during the unveiling, it has been observed that the HomePod has vast similarities with Amazon's Echo speakers, but is almost double the price.