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Will Siri Voicemail Transcription Revive Apple's Shares?

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This article is more than 8 years old.

Apple's Siri -- the app that listens and talks back -- may add a feature that converts voicemails left on your iPhone into text. Does this mean it's time to back up the truck and buy more shares of Apple?

Not at all. In fact, the excitement about this rumored feature is symptomatic of the challenge Apple is facing when it comes to innovating. And until it proves that it can overcome that, Apple's stock will remain dead money.

More on Siri: BusinessInsider reports that Apple employees are testing a service that transcribes voicemail messages using Siri. This report claims that the service  -- which "is being prepared for launch in 2016 with the iOS 10 mobile operating system" -- will deliver text of the transcribed voicemail using Apple's iCloud service.

Based on this description, my immediate reaction was: Why is anyone excited about this? Of all the technology news to talk about on the morning news, why did the producers of my local ABC affiliate choose this one?

Everyone in my family -- except me -- owns and uses an iPhone. And I never see them use Siri. So anything related to Siri seems like a sideshow based on their usage patterns.

I do not have a problem with listening to voicemails. When I get a voicemail that is clearly junk, I just delete it in the first few seconds. If I get an important email, what I really care about is how I can call back the person without having to remember the call-back number and type it into my cell phone.

And since I often listen to voicemails when I am driving, I would rather listen to someone's sometimes long-winded message than to read the text of it.

Since I was lucky to survive 15 months ago -- sitting in traffic I got rear-ended by a guy who was texting while driving his Jeep at 40 miles an hour -- I would really like to see a reduction in the amount of screen-readable temptations to distract drivers.

To be fair, Ben Gordon of BG Strategic Advisors, told me this new feature is great. "I think voice-to-text saves time. I’ve been using PhoneTag for 7-8 years, and I get 10-20 messages a day. It probably saves 4-8 minutes a day, and makes it easier to respond," he said.

Nevertheless, if this new Siri feature is offered -- and even if it becomes popular -- it does not strike me as a reason to invest in Apple shares. After hitting a 2015 high of $133 in February, the stock is down nearly 12% at $117.34 in August 4 pre-market trading.

Part of that decline is due to its disappointing second quarter 2015 results. As I posted a few weeks ago, Apple did not achieve the iPhone sales targets analysts had set, its Other Revenue category was too low to satisfy their fever for Apple Watch sales, and its outlook was on the low end of forecasts.

In general, Apple's problem is that it has failed to innovate since it launched the now-declining iPad in 2010.

By innovation, I mean that Apple introduced a new product into a big existing market category -- such as MP3 players, cell phones, and tablet computers -- and gained a big share of the profits through superior product design, better marketing, efficient supply chain management, and the creation of a big, growing ecosystem of app developers and content providers.

But Apple is now heavily dependent for its growth on demand in China. And that market is showing signs of slowing down. Indeed, BMW -- with which Apple is reported to be partnering for an electric car -- said that it has cut its Chinese production by 16,000 cars and things there could get worse, according to Bloomberg.

And smart phone demand there is also stagnating. Canalys analyst, Jingwen Wang, said “The China smart phone market continues to mature, remaining stagnant quarter-on-quarter. Competition among major brands has never been so intense."

Moreover, Apple is losing share in China. Counterpoint Research put Xiaomi as the leader in China with a 15.8% market share, Huawei is second (15.4%), and Apple third (12.2%).

And while some think the Watch is Apple's next big thing, the numbers do not so far support the hype.

Indeed, the Wall Street Journal reported that Bernstein Research analyst Mark Li, Taiwan-based Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) which makes system-in-package (SiP) cases for the watch told investors that it was not selling enough cases to break even.

Noted Li, ASE has "yet to hit a break even volume of 2 million units per month in the second-quarter. In addition, ASE believes it will not hit break-even numbers even in the third quarter."

I do not know why anyone would buy an Apple Watch -- but I am not its target customer. So I have asked about 300 college students whether they'd fork over the $300 to $10,000 needed to own it. All but two -- who wanted to be thought of as cool by showing off their Apple Watch -- said no.

And last week, I taught a four-day course on entrepreneurship to 32 Chinese college students -- none of whom said they would buy the Apple Watch.

In a nutshell, the breathlessly reported Siri voicemail transcription service is hardly a good reason to buy Apple shares.

And I would not be surprised if an unpleasant third quarter report in October proves to be a good reason to sell it.