Siri sucks, why?

[MacNut]

It just started working for me, this is amazing.

[kas23]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

When the network is actually working, Siri is really no different than any prior voice recognition apps. Unfortunately for me, Apple really hyped this up and I bit. It's certainly not a "game changer" as people put it. For example, it couldn't handle "give me directions to the Olive Garden", "direct me home", or "who is Umberto Eco".

[Jamooche]

Siri mostly hangs for about 20-30 seconds and then says "sorry I'm having trouble connecting to the network." The network is fine and everything works manually.

I'm going to stop trying to get it to do anything...almost as annoying as the new faulty iCloud.

[bradkane]

Feature is more or less garbage. Even without the insane network lag, I'm not finding any value in it, except perhaps emailing while driving.

I do still think voice interface is the future of interfaces. And to be fair, Apple is calling Siri a beta, which is accurate. Give the software a year or so, get third parties adding to the lexicon and developing genuinely useful applications, and come up with a smoother voice, and I think this idea will take off.

For now, I love the dictation feature (when it works -- there are lag bugs), but Siri is getting deactivated.

[LxHunter]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Working great for me.
Sent text and email, added apointment to calendar.
Pulls up addresses from my contacts.
Asked for the atomic weight of carbon (must pull from Wolfram).
I think it is amazing - even if missing Canadian info.

I asked it to: "Open the pod bay doors, HAL". (And my name is David). Apple does have a sense of humour.

[kas23]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Originally Posted by oiuh151

It's in beta. What do you expect?

Oh please. Apple hyped it up big time - we all watched the guy running by the Golden Gate bridge. And all Apple's minions (Mosberg, etc) made this sound bigger and better than the re-invention of the wheel. But then they say it's still beta? I'm sure this was just to plant the seed for the apologists.

[mrsir2009]

Originally Posted by zipster

Some people with accents or speech impediments don't know they have it.

Especially when everyone around them has the same accent.

[MacNut]

I think Siri works quite well.

[oiuh151]

Originally Posted by kas23

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)



Oh please. Apple hyped it up big time - we all watched the guy running by the Golden Gate bridge. And all Apple's minions (Mosberg, etc) made this sound bigger and better than the re-invention of the wheel. But then they say it's still beta? I'm sure this was just to plant the seed for the apologists.

Yeah, I'm an apologist because I'm stating facts.

How are these supposed "Apple minions" wrong for stating what they did? Clearly it works well for some and not so well for others. Just because you are having problems means that you should get your panties in a bunch over something that was stated as beta clear as day on the product page that explained Siri. Beta is beta, that is their nature. Some have no issues, others do.

[austinguy23]

You don't make all your statements sound like questions like a lot of Californians do you? Like...."Message Mike? Tell him I'll be late?"

Not being critical...just saying that could be a problem if Siri interprets all your commands as questions.

[sjinsjca]

I have what is generally commented-on as an odd accent, and Siri worked first time for me: "What is the capital of Madagascar?"

It took a while (server overload?) but presented a bunch of facts about the country, including its capital, and many useful links, organized in a table.

It's early on, but I'm impressed. I can see all sorts of uses for this.

For one thing, where it differs from past voice-recognition approaches is its integration of all the functionality that the iPhone provides. It's location-aware, familiar with your contacts, knowledgeable about your apps and documents, hooked-up with your communications channels, and so on. It's the mash-up that fascinates, and I think it's a winner.

----------

Originally Posted by austinguy23

You don't make all your statements sound like questions like a lot of Californians do you? Like...."Message Mike? Tell him I'll be late?"

Not being critical...just saying that could be a problem if Siri interprets all your commands as questions.

I'm a Californian and yes, that is a common and annoying speech habit hereabouts.

Similarly, I wonder how Siri, like, will handle, like, other Californian mannerisms and, like, stuff.

[robdam1001]

Siri works great for me so far. Setting appts in Calendar, SMS, finding places. Loving it. I'm impressed

[fel10]

Originally Posted by The DRis

Obvious troll is obvious. My brothers and mine works PERFECTLY well.

Don't want to help the OP? Fine, but don't call the guy a troll just because he is having issues with his phone and u r not.

[jwatsonusa]

Tried to find a Starbucks nearby. Siri spells out Starbucks correctly but cannot locate it. SIRI tells me it can only locate US businesses while I use US English. What's the issue then as I am in the US and it spells out Starbucks correctly.

The interface itself is cumbersome and lengthy with many errors. It's not even usable if you're driving. I tried it side by side with Vlingo. There is no comparison. Vlingo connected me to a map of Starbucks no problem. I then tried to find a Mexican restaurant, Chipotle. Siri never could get word correct, but Vlingo got it first try.

Also, to text or call someone Vlingo much smoother. SIRI uses prompt after prompt after prompt, gad! Vlingo gets command and text for test message or email right away. I asked Siri to call one of my contacts, Dr.Fisher. Two Fishers came up- one was Dr.Fisher. It asked me if I wanted Dr.Fisher. Of course I said yes. Then the two Fishers came up again, and again Siri asked me if I wanted Dr.Fisher. And on and on. Vlingo got it first try.

The speech to text accuracy is so weak on Siri, it is not usable. It will cause more auto accidents than prevent because one must keep editing- and your blood pressure will rise at Siri's inability to get it right. Beware of road rage!!

If Siri works for you, great, but Siri is the worst of all the voice command programs I have used on any of the three iPhones I have used. Prior to IOS5, I bought a version of SIRI app and hated it then too. I thought with the iPhone 4S the app would be improved, but no. Seems worse even though the hardware is much better on iPHone 4S. I recommend Vlingo- my guess is that there are other apps out there too.

[gentlefury]

Have you tried less utilitarian commands, like "Tell Pat I'll be there shortly"

Siri is built on conversational interpretation, so if those old "commands" aren't working for you, try just talking like you would a person.

----------

Originally Posted by Jamooche

I didn't realize it was in beta. I guess that's not a widely publicized status. I guess I'm not disappointed after all.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/#siri

The giant orange BETA banner didn't tip you off?

----------

Originally Posted by jwatsonusa

Tried to find a Starbucks nearby. Siri spells out Starbucks correctly but cannot locate it. SIRI tells me it can only locate US businesses while I use US English. What's the issue then as I am in the US and it spells out Starbucks correctly.

The interface itself is cumbersome and lengthy with many errors. It's not even usable if you're driving. I tried it side by side with Vlingo. There is no comparison. Vlingo connected me to a map of Starbucks no problem. I then tried to find a Mexican restaurant, Chipotle. Siri never could get word correct, but Vlingo got it first try.

Also, to text or call someone Vlingo much smoother. SIRI uses prompt after prompt after prompt, gad! Vlingo gets command and text for test message or email right away. I asked Siri to call one of my contacts, Dr.Fisher. Two Fishers came up- one was Dr.Fisher. It asked me if I wanted Dr.Fisher. Of course I said yes. Then the two Fishers came up again, and again Siri asked me if I wanted Dr.Fisher. And on and on. Vlingo got it first try.

The speech to text accuracy is so weak on Siri, it is not usable. It will cause more auto accidents than prevent because one must keep editing- and your blood pressure will rise at Siri's inability to get it right. Beware of road rage!!

If Siri works for you, great, but Siri is the worst of all the voice command programs I have used on any of the three iPhones I have used. Prior to IOS5, I bought a version of SIRI app and hated it then too. I thought with the iPhone 4S the app would be improved, but no. Seems worse even though the hardware is much better on iPHone 4S. I recommend Vlingo- my guess is that there are other apps out there too.

Try, "I could go for a coffee"

[davelanger]

Originally Posted by salesguy

Anyone else having an issue with their lock sounds/clicks going up to max after using Siri? It is rather annoying to always have to adjust it back down. Other than that it has been working pretty good.

It does that on mine too but you dont have to adjust it back down. After 3 or 4 cllicks it goes back to normal, at least on mine it does. Test it out to see if your phone does that too

[Alonzo84]

Originally Posted by jwatsonusa

Tried to find a Starbucks nearby. Siri spells out Starbucks correctly but cannot locate it. SIRI tells me it can only locate US businesses while I use US English. What's the issue then as I am in the US and it spells out Starbucks correctly.

The interface itself is cumbersome and lengthy with many errors. It's not even usable if you're driving. I tried it side by side with Vlingo. There is no comparison. Vlingo connected me to a map of Starbucks no problem. I then tried to find a Mexican restaurant, Chipotle. Siri never could get word correct, but Vlingo got it first try.

Also, to text or call someone Vlingo much smoother. SIRI uses prompt after prompt after prompt, gad! Vlingo gets command and text for test message or email right away. I asked Siri to call one of my contacts, Dr.Fisher. Two Fishers came up- one was Dr.Fisher. It asked me if I wanted Dr.Fisher. Of course I said yes. Then the two Fishers came up again, and again Siri asked me if I wanted Dr.Fisher. And on and on. Vlingo got it first try.

The speech to text accuracy is so weak on Siri, it is not usable. It will cause more auto accidents than prevent because one must keep editing- and your blood pressure will rise at Siri's inability to get it right. Beware of road rage!!

If Siri works for you, great, but Siri is the worst of all the voice command programs I have used on any of the three iPhones I have used. Prior to IOS5, I bought a version of SIRI app and hated it then too. I thought with the iPhone 4S the app would be improved, but no. Seems worse even though the hardware is much better on iPHone 4S. I recommend Vlingo- my guess is that there are other apps out there too.

Well I've experienced the complete opposite. I used SIRI on my iPhone with a friend using Vlingo on his phone. SIRI was much more intuitive and accurate. I actually had a conversation with SIRI with it missing a beat. It's almost scary how intelligent it is, especially considering it's still in Beta. I foresee a future similar to that portrayed in Terminator 3.

[rocknblogger]

Originally Posted by bleomycin

My friend and I received our iphone 4s's today and i finally got mine activated on crappy AT&T after hours of trying. Long story short, Siri seems to be completely useless and i wanted to see if others are also experiencing problems. Asking siri extremely simple things such as "Text Pat" do not work reliably. It will either screw it up completely giving "ex Pat" as it's response, or it will just say sorry i didn't understand you. Neither of us have any type of accent or speech impediment. We are both testing in a quiet room with little to no background noise.

The reason i'm so confused is i've seen plenty of videos of this working far better in very noisy environments. Could this perhaps be an issue with apple server load? It would be great to hear other's experiences so far, I didn't expect Siri to be amazing but i did expect to be able to dictate extremely basic text messages which it is failing at completely, we are both extremely disappointed.

On the day I got my phone and activated it Siri didn't work well at all. I would say it failed the first five or six times I tried basic commands. I started thinking it was a dud. But then when I decided to try a day later it worked almost perfectly. I have no explanation as to why but it has been working fine ever since.

[gentlefury]

Originally Posted by rocknblogger

On the day I got my phone and activated it Siri didn't work well at all. I would say it failed the first five or six times I tried basic commands. I started thinking it was a dud. But then when I decided to try a day later it worked almost perfectly. I have no explanation as to why but it has been working fine ever since.

Don't forget, Siri is not an internal interpreter. In order for it to work it has to call out to a server than interprets your command and sends a response. If your signal is garbage it could possibly corrupt the sent data and be unable to work properly.

[Gordonw]

I have to say I've enjoyed using Siri. Even when I had the app, it worked very well. Last week the best test I got was when both my brother and sister started texting while I was driving home. Normally I would wait until I got home to reply, but decided to give Siri a try. Once in awhile it would misspell a word, but overall was an excellent experience. I was able to reply to both without any issues, even though my car is old and a little loud.
As for the person who had issues finding Starbucks, I decided to give it a try. Its funny, but if I ask Siri to find the nearest Starbucks, it pulls up a list of nearby Starbucks and Subways. If I specifically ask Starbucks coffee, it pulls up only a list of Starbucks.

[CheesePuff]

Out of probably 25 requests there is only 1 that it doesn't understand. I can easily say Text Whoever and it nearly always gets it right on the first try. Voice dictation is probably 95 - 99% correct, and a lot of my testing was done in a relatively loud bar as well and I was quite surprised.

[pdqgp]

Siru has been dead on in my use. I have no accent to get in the way and evidently our area networks aren't tapped because Siri is quite fast too.

[gentlefury]

Originally Posted by pdqgp

Siru has been dead on in my use. I have no accent to get in the way and evidently our area networks aren't tapped because Siri is quite fast too.

Im not buying the accent issue....I saw a video recently of somebody with a thick indian accent and it worked perfectly. I think people on AT&T are going to suffer the most because that network just blows.

[SunnyFL]

My biggest problem with Siri is when I usually need it to perform the most it fails with the can't find network or the AH OH Something went wrong can you try again? Now if I am just goofing off playing with it it works fine usually.

[Bellemina]

siri stopped working for me about an hour ago all I get is there seems to be a problem try again or I can't connect to the network