So how will technology kill the music industry then? Well, it will simply destroy the record label. The reason is simple. Record labels are a man in the middle that simply doesn’t need to exist anymore. The same way we buy our flights direct, and get our shopping online and have things delivered from Amazon instead of going to a local shop. We have always been keen to enjoy cost reductions at the expense of the middleman, and the record labels are the ultimate in middle men.
What does the record industry offer? Well, surprisingly little these days. It used to be the case that record labels would go and find new talent. Of course this still happens, but more likely is that an artist will be discovered by the public through YouTube, or SoundCloud or even from friends on Facebook or Twitter .
But it wasn’t the internet that killed the music industry. In fact, everything is still looking rosy for many musicians and labels. Taylor Swift has had a good year, and her latest album is likely to be making her very wealthy indeed. And that won’t change in all likelihood, not for Swift, and not for those who come after her. There is always going to be public demand for music, as there has been for hundreds or even thousands of years. The human brain is wired to enjoy the patterns of music, so a musical beat is something we will always seek out.
Looking over the web and especially the blogosphere over the past couple of days, it seems there is only one thing everyone wants to talk about: Siri. With the iPhone 4S now in millions of peoples’ hands, as expected, it’s clearly the stand-out feature of the device.
There are a few reasons. But the simplest answer is one that has played out time and time again over the past several years: Apple did it right.
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システムレベルで iOS に組み込んだ
確かに音声技術を初めて実現したのはアップルではない。電話に実装したのもアップルが初めてではない。実をいえば、アップルが音声コントロールに手を出したのは Siri が初めてではない。iPhone で試した最初の試みは、ハッキリいえばひどいものだった。誰も使わないのは当然だ。ところが Siri（アップルが買収した会社）のやることは、従前のサードバーティ製のスタンドアローンアプリとまったく同じことだ。従前の音声コントロールの試みに競争力はないが、Siri をシステムレベルで iOS と統合すれば魔法の力を持つとアップルが考えたそのビジョンと洞察力が賞賛すべきなのだ。
No, Apple is not the first to implement voice technology. Nor are they the first to do it on a phone. In fact, Siri isn’t even Apple’s first foray into voice controls. But their first attempt on the iPhone, quite frankly, sucked. It’s no surprise that no one used it. As for Siri, it’s a company that Apple acquired — they were actually doing some of the same things as a stand-alone third-party app previously. Credit Apple for having the vision and foresight to realize that their previous voice control offering wasn’t competitive, and that system-level integration of Siri into iOS could be magical.
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人間らしさ
大きな目で見れば、またしてもアップルはライバルが理解し得ないことを理解していたのだ。テクノロジーは誰の生活にとってもますます重要になっている。しかし幅広いユーザーが真にアクセスできるようにするためには、「人間らしさを加える」（humanize）ことが唯一の方法なのだ。それが Siri だ。グーグルもマイクロソフトも、ほかの誰もがこの点で見事に失敗している。
In the bigger picture, this is something that Apple seems to understand time and time again that their rivals do not. Technology is an ever-important part of everyones’ lives, but the only way to make it truly accessible to the vast majority of users is to humanize it. That’s Siri. Google, Microsoft, etc — they all fail miserably at doing this.
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なぜ控え目なのか
奇妙なのは、いつもならすばらしいマーケティングの手腕を見せるアップルが、こと Siri に関してはそれを抑えているように見えることだ。何故だろうか？ それは Siri がまだベータ段階だとアップルが考えているからだ。グーグルの製品ならすべてはベータから始まる。アップルはそう軽々にベータということばを使わない。今回の発表にいたるまでアップルと話してみて明らかなことは、今目にしている Siri が第一歩としてはすばらしいものだが、目標とするものには遥かに及ばないと彼らが感じていることだ。そこに至るまでなお半年、あるいは１年かかるかもしれない。しかし準備成れりというときがくれが、大掛かりなマーケティング攻勢をかけることは間違いない。しかもその時には、複数のデバイスでも可能になるかもしれないのだ。
The funny thing is that while Apple are normally brilliant marketers in this regard, they’re actually holding back on Siri right now. Why? Because they consider the product to still be in “beta”. And while every Google product starts in beta, it’s not a tag Apple takes lightly. Talking with them leading up to the launch, they clearly feel that Siri as it stands right now, while a great first step, is nowhere near where they want it to be. It may take six months to get there. It may take a year. But when Apple does get it to where they feel it’s ready, I bet we’ll see a massive marketing push. And we may even see it come to other devices at that point.
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いろいろなデータとの統合
Siri は今の時点ではまだベータ段階だ。しかし直ぐには他のデータ提供パートナーと統合しないなどと考えるひとがいるだろうか。Quora と統合したときを考えてみよ。Twitter（すでにそうなっているかもしれない）と統合したらどうか。Foursquare はどうか。それに・・・Facebook とならどうだ。それが実現した暁には、グーグルは本気で心配するハメになる。
But again, this is a beta product. Does anyone really think Apple isn’t going to work quickly to integrate it with other data partners? Imagine it tied to Quora. Imagine it tied to Twitter (and how is it not already?!). Imagine it tied to Foursquare. Imagine it tied to… Facebook. If and when that happens, Google will have a very legitimate reason to be concerned.
Right now, Google is a middle man between us and information. And we love Google for it. There’s simply too much information out there for anyone to find by themselves. There needs to be a middle man. We need Google. Apple has been hinting for a while that mobile applications could change this game. But apps are just a new, perhaps more accesible wrapper of information. There still needs to be a search mechanism powering the discovery of information — that’s why everyone keeps insisting that Apple will eventually get into the search engine business.
Well they have. But not in the way that everyone was thinking. Siri is their entry point. Again, it’s a small step right now, but it has the potential to be massive. (Perhaps the more pressing question: is Apple okay relying heavily on a third party, Nuance, for what may become a core component of their stack?)
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新しい検索パラダイムとしての音声入力
グーグルの音声検索（voice search）ならエキサイティングだと感じないのに Siri ならそう感じる根源的理由もそこにある。グーグル製品とは、つまるところすべてがグーグル検索を使わせる手段なのだ。音声検索も新しく加わったひとつのレイヤーに過ぎない。それが十分からなくても、まったく新しいものだとは感じられないのだ。Siri は完全に新しいものを目指している。Siri によってアップルは情報検索のあり方を変え、新しいパラダイムを創造したいと考えているのだ。それはモバイルによって可能となった進歩であり、音声（voice）という新しくかつ強力な情報入力によって可能となったものなのだ。
And that’s another fundamental reason why people are so excited by Siri where they aren’t by Google voice search. Google voice search, like basically every Google product, is ultimately a way to drive more Google searches. It’s just a new layer. Even if people don’t fully understand that, they sense that it doesn’t point to something totally new. Siri does point to something totally new. With it, Apple wants to change the information search and creation paradigm. It’s an evolution powered by mobile and a new, more powerful input: voice.
これはアップルが２４年の長きにわたって追い求めてきたビジョンだ。iPad 発表のころから上のビデオが改めて注目を浴びている。「アップルは２０年以上も前からタブレットを考えていた」という言葉とともに。しかし大切な点が見落とされている。それは自然言語による音声対話（natural language voice interaction）という点だ。アップルは密かに開発を続けていた。そしてそれが現実のものとなった。まさに未来を告げているのだ。
This is a vision that has been 24 years in the making at Apple. The video below first re-surfaced around the launch of the iPad. “Apple envisioned their tablet 20+ years ago!,” everyone yelled. But at the time, everyone overlooked the arguably more powerful aspect: natural language voice interaction. Apple was quietly working on that too. And now it’s here. Heralding the future.
