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Siri can't read emails!? Only text messages?

j-a-x

j-a-x

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Apr 15, 2005
1,575
290
Houston, Texas
I just watched a Macworld review video where they say that Siri cannot read emails, it can just tell you how many unread emails you have, but it can read you txt messages and send emails. That's kind of a bummer. Siri actually says "Sorry, I cannot read emails, only text messages".

I was hoping to use it to listen to emails while driving. I wonder how long until Apple adds reading emails as a feature.
 
Maybe when is done completely , but maybe cause emails is HTMLs so is harder to read and it could be very long, I know my company sends some long boring emails I prefer to read those or sometimes don't Lmao
 
I would assume so in the future, there's really no reason why not. I know it's beta, I just hadn't noticed they left that out when I saw the Appel promo videos.

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Yeah true. But it wouldn't be so hard to just read text messages, or just read subjects, or something. There are a lot of creative solutions. Some day...

I think we need to place bets on how long it will take.
 
Yep, its beta. Eventually it will be able to read e-mails and get used with third party applications. I cannot wait for third party apps..thats gonna be cool!!
 
nfl46 said:
Yep, its beta. Eventually it will be able to read e-mails and get used with third party applications. I cannot wait for third party apps..thats gonna be cool!!
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how can u say its in beta ??? its a final release apple wouldnt have it with ios5 if it wasnt in final version...
 
jgalan14 said:
Maybe when is done completely , but maybe cause emails is HTMLs so is harder to read and it could be very long, I know my company sends some long boring emails I prefer to read those or sometimes don't Lmao
Click to expand...

Actually, I'd like to see Siri combined with the auto-summary feature from (I'm pretty sure) iWeb so if you get an email with more than ~30-45 seconds worth of text (and I'm assuming it'll be smart enough to ignore signatures and quoted text, etc) it reads you the summary and displays the full message for you to read if required, or asks you which you would like, etc.

On an unrelated note, it's going to be funny when I get my GV transcribed voicemail texted to me then read to me by Siri.
 
mrgreen4242 said:
Actually, I'd like to see Siri combined with the auto-summary feature from (I'm pretty sure) iWeb so if you get an email with more than ~30-45 seconds worth of text (and I'm assuming it'll be smart enough to ignore signatures and quoted text, etc) it reads you the summary and displays the full message for you to read if required, or asks you which you would like, etc.
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Yeah that's what I mean. There are creative solutions. Or Siri could just read subjects. Something like that would work. It would at least give me an idea of whether it is worth pulling over to read the entire email. There are ways of doing it.

There's actually a new app that will read your Twitter feed to you in real time. It would be cool to have Siri do something like that. Then I could hear the liveblog tweets about certain events while driving.

On an unrelated note, it's going to be funny when I get my GV transcribed voicemail texted to me then read to me by Siri.
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Haha GV voice message transcripts can be pretty bad.
 
Parsing HTML is likely a problem that will take some time to figure out. Otherwise you are going to hear something like this from Siri when you receive the latest Apple marketing e-mail:

"A h ref equals quotation h t t p colon forward slash forward slash apple dot com forward slash assets forward slash iPhone forward slash photo underscore one dot jpeg...."

In time, I suspect they will resolve this.

Length is probably another issue. I'm not sure how Siri/iPhone hardware will handle parsing 3 lengthy paragraphs in real-time.
 
Patriot24 said:
Parsing HTML is likely a problem that will take some time to figure out. Otherwise you are going to hear something like this from Siri when you receive the latest Apple marketing e-mail:

"A h ref equals quotation h t t p colon forward slash forward slash apple dot com forward slash assets forward slash iPhone forward slash photo underscore one dot jpeg...."

In time, I suspect they will resolve this.

Length is probably another issue. I'm not sure how Siri/iPhone hardware will handle parsing 3 lengthy paragraphs in real-time.
Click to expand...

If HTML code can be converted to readable, copy and passable text, then it can be spoken. It's not really that hard. Siri could just read the subject only of HTML emails if they are unparsable, and mention unable to read HTML rather than just skipping email altogether. And it could either just read until you press the button on the iPhone (or bluetooth button, or headphones button) and then stop, or .... there are lots of solutions. I don't really think it's a technical issue, which is why I'd bet that APple would add that support sooner rather than later.
 
My "dead in the water" symbian phone can read out emails. I'm sure Siri can do it, eventually.
 
Frasern1 said:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/#siri

Just out of curiosity...what is that big orange triangle in the corner for then?
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mrgreen4242 said:
Because I says beta all over it and was specifically described as being in beta when announced.
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Darwing said:
how can u say its in beta ??? its a final release apple wouldnt have it with ios5 if it wasnt in final version...
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Love it when people post a stupid question, then never reply back when they realize it. Every ad for Siri has the orange beta sign.
 
Hankster said:
Love it when people post a stupid question, then never reply back when they realize it. Every ad for Siri has the orange beta sign.
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i didnt get back because i have crap to do!!! and why would they have beta software being part of a final release of IOS?

beta means before userland release, and just because its going to get updates doesnt make it a beta, this will constantly be updated for as long as its a part of ios, doesnt make it beta... its in v1.0 in ios 5 release
 
Darwing said:
i didnt get back because i have crap to do!!! and why would they have beta software being part of a final release of IOS?

beta means before userland release, and just because its going to get updates doesnt make it a beta, this will constantly be updated for as long as its a part of ios, doesnt make it beta... its in v1.0 in ios 5 release
Click to expand...

They specifically said that it's still in beta at the keynote last week. :rolleyes:
 
Darwing said:
i didnt get back because i have crap to do!!! and why would they have beta software being part of a final release of IOS?

beta means before userland release, and just because its going to get updates doesnt make it a beta, this will constantly be updated for as long as its a part of ios, doesnt make it beta... its in v1.0 in ios 5 release
Click to expand...

It's called managing expectations.
 
Darwing said:
i didnt get back because i have crap to do!!! and why would they have beta software being part of a final release of IOS?

beta means before userland release, and just because its going to get updates doesnt make it a beta, this will constantly be updated for as long as its a part of ios, doesnt make it beta... its in v1.0 in ios 5 release
Click to expand...

You still missed the big, orange triangle?
 
Patriot24 said:
Parsing HTML is likely a problem that will take some time to figure out. Otherwise you are going to hear something like this from Siri when you receive the latest Apple marketing e-mail:

"A h ref equals quotation h t t p colon forward slash forward slash apple dot com forward slash assets forward slash iPhone forward slash photo underscore one dot jpeg...."

In time, I suspect they will resolve this.

Length is probably another issue. I'm not sure how Siri/iPhone hardware will handle parsing 3 lengthy paragraphs in real-time.
Click to expand...

Why would parsing HTML for voice be any more of a problem than for display in a browser?
 
Darwing said:
i didnt get back because i have crap to do!!! and why would they have beta software being part of a final release of IOS?

beta means before userland release, and just because its going to get updates doesnt make it a beta, this will constantly be updated for as long as its a part of ios, doesnt make it beta... its in v1.0 in ios 5 release
Click to expand...

Gmail was in beta for an age, but everyone still had an account..
 
Didn't apple acquire Siri in April of 2010? 18MOS later and you're still on beta??
 
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