Siri’s Initial Eight-Country Limitation on New Apple TV Due to Pronunciation Training

[macfacts]

Yup, this. Siri does not have access to your database, nor can it index it. It's server side. That would be invasion of privacy to allow that. Imagine if Apple could remotely link in to the information on your machine and index it. Yeah, no. I love Apple but it's good they don't do that. It would be a huge welcome sign for the likes of the NSA and other users who wish to exploit such a vast door of fun....

So what happens when you say "hey siri, call mom on speakerphone" ? And does that work without a data connection? yeah ...

 

[Roadstar]

To be fair to Apple, English is supported, which is the most important language in the world.

#EnglishMatters

The problem here is that unlike the phone Siri, there's no way to use the Apple TV Siri even in English in countries outside the support list.

 

[Neodym]

English song titles or band names is something the german Siri on my iPhone has never been able to deal with [...]

Give it a new try. With iOS9, Siri seems to be able to distinguish between german words (e.g. "Spiele Musik von ...") and english song titles / band names. It even managed to play music from "Yello", although the onscreen text said it recognized "Yellow" - seems Apple improved significantly on context recognition and fuzzy logic interpretation.

 

[klky]

For those that have asked, yes, the remote is exactly the same wherever you buy it. The availability of Siri is based on the region of your iTunes account. I live in Hong Kong, bought my Apple TV here and am able to use Siri when I log in with my US based iTunes account.

 

[Tech198]

"...who may run into problems and become frustrated, would dilute its overall appeal."

I don't think we have to worry about that.

People have been pronouncing differently in different countries well before voice assistance came along.

So either Americans just need to start sounding more like "good old Australians mate".... or siri on ATV better learn pretty fast.

I guess its not just siri,, natural language software would have the same caveat...

 

[G-News]

It IS identical. If you were to purchase an Apple TV in a country that doesn't currently support Siri, and chose American English, or one of the other supported languages, Siri works. It only doesn't currently work in the native language of the countries that have the "Apple Remote"

Sadly it's not that easy. Your Apple-ID has to be set to one of thr supported countries to be available. That is a poor decision by Apple imo. I speak both German and English fluently, as well as French and have no problems talking to Siri on my phone (I am Swiss). Yet on the AppleTV I can not turn it on in either of the three languages because my Apple ID is Swiss. So unless I want to start paying my things in Euros, Dollars or Pounds and loose all my previous purchases, I can technically not use Siri despite being perfectly capable of talking to it. It's just bad judgment by Apple to tie Siri to the ID and not just the language setting.

 

[recoil80]

Make sense, but at least they could give us the ability to connect a bluetooth keyboard or update the remote app to enable text input. The external keyboard was supported in ATV3, so how could it be to support it even on ATV4?
And don't get me started about passwords. Siri can't help us with that and the on screen keyboard is awful.

 

[Crossmax]

NOT true...... Siri doesn't work in not supported countries and can not be "tricked" to do so

Is this regardless of whether I buy the Apple TV in a Siri supported country or not? In other words, if I buy an Apple TV in the US and want to use it in a non-supported country (with English on), will it or will it not work?

 

[recoil80]

Is this regardless of whether I buy the Apple TV in a Siri supported country or not? In other words, if I buy an Apple TV in the US and want to use it in a non-supported country (with English on), will it or will it not work?

It depends on your iCloud account.
If your account is related to a supported country you can use Siri, otherwise the feature is disabled.

 

[klky]

Is this regardless of whether I buy the Apple TV in a Siri supported country or not? In other words, if I buy an Apple TV in the US and want to use it in a non-supported country (with English on), will it or will it not work?

Availability of Siri has nothing to do with where you purchase your apple tv or where you use it. The hardware is identical everywhere save for the plug that is packaged with the box. It has to do with the region of your iTunes account.

 

[Crazy Badger]

Well my experience of Siri so far has been very poor, and I'm in one of the supported counties!

More often than not it doesn't recognise what I've said and I still haven't managed to get it to work with "what did he say"

I'm sure it will improve, but at the minute it's just a pointless gimmick for me. Coming from the aTV3 though, there's enough improvement for me to wait and see how it develops.

If you don't have it in your region, don't be too upset. You're not missing much

 

[klky]

Well my experience of Siri so far has been very poor, and I'm in one of the supported counties!

More often than not it doesn't recognise what I've said and I still haven't managed to get it to work with "what did he say"

I'm sure it will improve, but at the minute it's just a pointless gimmick for me. Coming from the aTV3 though, there's enough improvement for me to wait and see how it develops.

If you don't have it in your region, don't be too upset. You're not missing much

I dunno. Siri works great for me. I also tried "what did he say" while watching a movie. It rewound 10 secs and temporarily turned on subtitles as advertised which is very cool. I tried a few other things like getting game scores while watching a movie and it also worked fine.

It did take some getting used to holding down the Siri button on the remote WHILE speaking. This is notably different from holding down the home button to ACTIVATE Siri on our iPhone and iPads.

 

[Crazy Badger]

Agh, maybe I'm just doing it wrong

I'll have another go tonight, keeping the button pressed whilst speaking. Pretty sure I've been using it like the iPhone and just holding down the button to activate!

 

[klky]

Agh, maybe I'm just doing it wrong

I'll have another go tonight, keeping the button pressed whilst speaking. Pretty sure I've been using it like the iPhone and just holding down the button to activate!

I hope that's what it was and it works out for you!

 

[Rayamedia]

Siri is not available in Spain, so its 7 countries.

 

[Razeus]

What a load of bull. What has Siri been doing the last 4 years across all these countries?

Oh that's right, Apple keeps the data on your phone and doesn't actually use it for server farming data. No wonder they are falling behind Google in this area.

Mark my words: Apple's downfall will be their dedication to privacy.

 

[oneMadRssn]

That would assume that the metadata provided by iFlicks is sufficient for Siri to do its thing. Which it might or might not, we don't really know the range of metadata that Siri can use to recommend/offer us movies.

You're right, we don't know. Siri on AppleTV is a version 1, lacks some features as expected, and I'm sure it will improve with time.

That said, I think it is far more likely than not that the unique itunes id that every movie, episode, and other bit of content on itunes gets is sufficient to match it up for Siri.

 

[AnTaR3s]

Those areas that still received the fourth generation set-top box at launch, but are without Siri, were given a remote that looks identical to the Siri Remote but has been dubbed the "Apple TV Remote" due to its lack of full voice control capabilities.

Can someone explain this to me? Did I get a different remote (i.e. different hardware) without the full functionality, or do I just have to wait for Siri to be activated in my region?

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

It's a mystery to my mind as to why Ireland was excluded from the list. Considering it works fine in Northern Ireland, and the republic all speak English anyway, it doesn't really make sense to exclude them.

English but English with an accent. That's a challenge to get Siri to understand and that's the reason they didn't include it from launch. They didn't just do it out of spite towards those outside of the US. They want to make it work for the most number of people at launch. They would have included those areas if they were ready.

Can someone explain this to me? Did I get a different remote (i.e. different hardware) without the full functionality, or do I just have to wait for Siri to be activated in my region?

You got the same remote as everyone else. When they get the software there, they'll activate the remote. They won't be shipping all current owners new remotes and they didn't produce 2 different remotes as that means more expense for them.

 

[melendezest]

Siri not being available for me was a huge huge disappointment. I am an American living outside the US and I thought surely that by having my Apple TV set to English that it would be available.

I don't understand that. They could at least include English, regardless of where it's deployed.

I think that is a major failure on their design. They should all be at least bilingual (except for those in the NTSC market, of course).

Good to know though. One more reason to wait on v2 (v5?).

No, the Siri server does not need to reach into my database at all, the two can be kept wholly seperate. I say "modern family" into the Siri remote, my voice is sent to a server and processed, and the server returns "Modern Family, tv show category, itunes id, etc etc." back to my AppleTV. Then the AppleTV can query my HomeSharing database (without reaching externally or sending anything externally) to see if there are any tv shows called "modern family" or any tv shows that match the same itunes id stored in my HomeSharing server. Thus, the Siri server never knows, nor need to know, what is in my database. No need to invade any privacy, at all.

I like that, but that'd be slow. There should be a way to enable keys between my server and the ATV to allow searching on my local network, while keeping any Internet search separate/sandboxed, kind of like the way I can access all computers in my home network and share screen, browse for files and move/copy at will.

Better integration of Siri into say, OS X would obviate an ATV and just allow a Mac mini to serve as it.

Better yet, turn AppleTV into an app so you can install it on your machine and connect it to the TV, with all features the ATV currently has and obviously more, while keeping iTunes separate.

Is that what Plex does?

I don't know much about it.

 

[AnTaR3s]

You got the same remote as everyone else. When they get the software there, they'll activate the remote. They won't be shipping all current owners new remotes and they didn't produce 2 different remotes as that means more expense for them.

Thanks for the reassurance!