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

[MacRumors]

Despite Siri's availability on iOS in over fifteen different languages and over thirty countries, the voice assistant's support on the new Apple TV has remained limited to eight countries: Australia, Canada, Great Britain, United States, Germany, France, Spain, and Japan.

In a new report by MacPrime [Google Translate], the importance of "film and television content" -- including altering the phonetic pronunciation of movie titles and actor names -- was given as the main reason behind this initially small Siri support on the new Apple TV.

The explanation: Siri on Apple TV is different in large parts of Siri on iOS. The voice control of the set-top box Apple had to put a special focus on television and film content. These include in particular film titles and names of actors, directors, producers and the like. Apart from the various translations of movie titles, the pronunciation of titles or name differs depending on the country or region.

Specifically, examples for film titles like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and the actor Matthew McConaughey were given as the most different from the way Americans tend to say them. Since the new Apple TV is fueled by an extensive Siri voice search functionality, Apple feared that releasing the feature to a more global audience, who may run into problems and become frustrated, would dilute its overall appeal.

The project managers that MacPrime spoke to noted incoming support for more countries and languages, although the company has yet to give an exact date to the expanded regions that will gain Siri functionality on the Apple TV. 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.

Article Link: Siri's Initial Eight-Country Limitation on New Apple TV Due to Pronunciation Training

 

[Gasu E.]

Makes sense.

 

[happydude]

everyone knows it takes a long time to learn a 2nd language, then 3rd, 4th, 5th languages are easier to pick up. i'm sure siri is hard at work, burning the midnight oil, picking up those next languages and regional dialect differences.

 

[salohcin]

So what's Apple's excuse for not having Siri be able to search local Home Sharing content?

 

[Benjamin Frost]

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

#EnglishMatters

 

[MentalFloss]

I haven't tried the new Apple TV yet (my old one is a constant source of frustration, which is both a reason for and against upgrading), but it will be interesting to see how Siri will deal with english movie names for me (I am German). English song titles or band names is something the german Siri on my iPhone has never been able to deal with, which is one reason why Siri is set to English ln my phone.

 

[Kaibelf]

So what's Apple's excuse for not having Siri be able to search local Home Sharing content?

Your home database isn't maintained by Apple. Why do you want their server based voice recognition reaching into your locally stored self-titled database?

 

[Fzang]

What a wordy way of saying "unprepared".

 

[AbSoluTc]

Your home database isn't maintained by Apple. Why do you want their server based voice recognition reaching into your locally stored self-titled database?

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.

What a wordy way of saying "unprepared".

Let's see you encode a voice recognition database that can fluently understand 30+ languages.

It's not unprepared, it's a lot of work and they are rolling it out quite nicely.

 

[cycomiko]

does the remote 'look identical' or is it actually 'identical' but without the apple tv actually responding to the request? as why would i drop 400 dollars at the current exchange rate for something that looks the same but with no ability to use the functionality even if I use Australian english.

 

[solamar]

So what's Apple's excuse for not having Siri be able to search local Home Sharing content?

You want to index your local content, get Plex setup.. They will be using the Siri SDK once it's out. Much better solution anyway than 'Home Sharing'.. I always thought home sharing was too basic; but I think thats the point. Home Sharing was never meant to be much more than it already is. Just a quick way to get to some content. Want advanced features - look to developers to fill that gap.

I'm very happy with the new Plex Client app for ATV4 - watching my dubbed content, and the Plex Server DVBLink Channel plugin lets me see my local live TV and DVR'd shows all on my ATV4.. Yes, so far, right out the gate, very happy with ATV4

 

[Peel]

does the remote 'look identical' or is it actually 'identical' but without the apple tv actually responding to the request? as why would i drop 400 dollars at the current exchange rate for something that looks the same but with no ability to use the functionality even if I use Australian english.

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"

 

[SlipperySlop]

What a wordy way of saying "unprepared".

You're absolutely correct. Apple should never have released this until every imperfection, every feature, every nuance was complete, even if it took until 2020 to accomplish this. Sheesh. You need to deal with a company that only released perfectly polished products. And there is a huge list of those companies for you.

 

[2010mini]

So what's Apple's excuse for not having Siri be able to search local Home Sharing content?

Where have you been?? Steve Jobs did away with ATV local management years ago.

 

[salohcin]

Your home database isn't maintained by Apple. Why do you want their server based voice recognition reaching into your locally stored self-titled database?

Because they didn't improve the interface to access the Home Sharing content at all and in a large library Siri would make finding things a lot easier than scrolling through all the content (especially since the remote app doesn't work with the new ATV). It's all tagged in the iTunes metadata format and the ATV pulls all that information in when accessing the library, so it's not like the ATV is completely blind to the data.

As for as privacy, we already allow Siri access to our location and contacts (among other things) on our phones, is allowing it access to our media any worse? I mean, people with iTunes match already let Apple view their music library, right? I can understand people wanting to keep their information private, but it would be a nice option to be able to "turn on" for people who would prefer to be able to search their whole collection.

 

[doboy]

So what's Apple's excuse for not having Siri be able to search local Home Sharing content?

I guess you really want Siri to search through your porn collection

 

[2010mini]

Because they didn't improve the interface to access the Home Sharing content at all and in a large library Siri would make finding things a lot easier than scrolling through all the content (especially since the remote app doesn't work with the new ATV). It's all tagged in the iTunes metadata format and the ATV pulls all that information in when accessing the library, so it's not like the ATV is completely blind to the data.

As for as privacy, we already allow Siri access to our location and contacts (among other things) on our phones, is allowing it access to our media any worse? I mean, people with iTunes match already let Apple view their music library, right? I can understand people wanting to keep their information private, but it would be a nice option to be able to "turn on" for people who would prefer to be able to search their whole collection.

Siri accesses the location and contact info only on the device it is enabled on. I can't use Siri on my iPhone to search files or contacts on my Mac

 

[salohcin]

You want to index your local content, get Plex setup.. They will be using the Siri SDK once it's out. Much better solution anyway than 'Home Sharing'.. I always thought home sharing was too basic; but I think thats the point. Home Sharing was never meant to be much more than it already is. Just a quick way to get to some content. Want advanced features - look to developers to fill that gap.

I'm very happy with the new Plex Client app for ATV4 - watching my dubbed content, and the Plex Server DVBLink Channel plugin lets me see my local live TV and DVR'd shows all on my ATV4.. Yes, so far, right out the gate, very happy with ATV4

There are some things I like about Plex, and you're right, it's currently a much better interface. But there are a few features that I personally would miss from iTunes (tracking of play counts and date/time last played). It also hasn't been very stable in my (admittedly limit) experience on the streaming devices I've tried it on. Just last night when I was using it on the ATV4 it would crash every time I would mark something as "watched." That kind of thing can be expected with a brand new app of course, but it's little things like that which make me less interested in using the product.

Siri accesses the location and contact info only on the device it is enabled on. I can't use Siri on my iPhone to search files or contacts on my Mac

True, but the contacts on your phone are (usually) synced with your Mac. I'm not talking about searching the whole Mac here, just the iTunes library file which is already accessed by the ATV through Home Sharing.

I guess you really want Siri to search through your porn collection

There is no 'Porn' section in iTunes!

 

[Otaviano]

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.

 

[coolfactor]

What a wordy way of saying "unprepared".

Reading the comments in this thread leave me feeling disappointed about the human race. Complaints, entitlements... why can't people see that Apple is making a decision that ensures the best user experience, rather than sales? What good is selling a product if it's sub-par for many people? I applaud Apple for making the right choice.

 

[MentalFloss]

Your home database isn't maintained by Apple. Why do you want their server based voice recognition reaching into your locally stored self-titled database?

Strange, I have always been able to use Siri to play music locally stored on my phone, including music I ripped from CDs. So there, the server based voice recognition can reach into my locally stored self-titled database without huge problems.

 

[oneMadRssn]

Your home database isn't maintained by Apple. Why do you want their server based voice recognition reaching into your locally stored self-titled database?

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.

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.

 

[Glassed Silver]

Your home database isn't maintained by Apple. Why do you want their server based voice recognition reaching into your locally stored self-titled database?

The thing is, the voice recognition shouldn't be server-side, let's start with that, shall we?

Glassed Silver:mac

 

[roverma]

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"

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

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

ITT: Nothing but complaints about the Apple TV, many of which have nothing to do with the topic of the thread.