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Mabus51

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Aug 16, 2007
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I didn’t think it was possible. But since WatchOS5 I’m finding Siri to be borderline useless. Before I switched from my S3 to the S4 with WatchOS5 she was getting things right about 99% of the time. However with OS5, I’d ask her to play a band and it would just respond I can’t do that right now. The S4 I have the problem where it doesn’t even come close to getting band right, hangs on tap when ready before playing, and when dictating a msg gets most of it all backwards. Super annoying.
 
I didn’t think it was possible. But since WatchOS5 I’m finding Siri to be borderline useless. Before I switched from my S3 to the S4 with WatchOS5 she was getting things right about 99% of the time. However with OS5, I’d ask her to play a band and it would just respond I can’t do that right now. The S4 I have the problem where it doesn’t even come close to getting band right, hangs on tap when ready before playing, and when dictating a msg gets most of it all backwards. Super annoying.

Yep. This new release has been garbage for me. Really disappointed.
 
Yeah also just turned off speak to Siri because I was annoyed by the notification for saying Hey Siri. Speak to Siri doesn’t work at all. Wish we could just install Alexa at this point. Siri was mediocre before now it’s just trash.
 
Ha, looks like I’m the only one Siri is working as well as she could. I even nail raise to speak. Yeah.. get “Hold on. I’ll tap you when I’m ready.” but it’s understandable since she needs to open app to execute command so can’t be prompt.
 
Siri is working for me at least as well as it was on my Series 3. The raise to speak works fine as long as I make sure the screen is off before I raise it and I raise it all the way to my mouth and next to the new speakers on the left side of the watch. Once Siri responds, you can move it farther away if that makes sense.
 
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I just got my series 4, upgraded from a series 0. I had to restart the watch and phone several times for various reasons after setting up as new.

Apps were hanging on install. Restarted. Siri was just saying “I’ll tap you when ready”. Restarted. At home, on WiFi, phone in hand. Really hope it’s still setting up in the background or something.

Side note after a few hours with the watch:

Major props on the one person Apple employs to design watch faces. The 2 that actually fit series 4’s screen size and allow complications are nice. I guess I was naive to think old circular complications would work as new circular complications. Or that old faces that CAN use old complications wouldn’t have an uneven black bezel at the top where the screen is turned off.

The lack of which info you can place where on Infograph Modular is maddening. You either have the date at the top or wasted screen space.
 
If I hold the crown I get “Hold on” every time. If I say “Hey Siri” then it works better.

But even when it works, it’s worse. “I’m going for a run” now just opens the workout app for me and sits on the workout launch screen. It doesn’t start a run like it used to.

So much worse for me. It’s went from useful to useless. It’s quicker to not use Siri now.
 
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If I hold the crown I get “Hold on” every time. If I say “Hey Siri” then it works better.

But even when it works, it’s worse. “I’m going for a run” now just opens the workout app for me and sits on the workout launch screen. It doesn’t start a run like it used to.

So much worse for me. It’s went from useful to useless. It’s quicker to not use Siri now.

If you say start a walk it works for me. But start a run doesn’t weird

Just fixed it. You have to say start an outdoor run. Not sure why you have to say outdoor though when the walk is the same.
 
If you say start a run it works for me.

Yeah, that works for a lot of people, but not me, unfortunately. I used to say "Hey Siri, I'm going for a run" and the 3-second countdown timer would pop up. Now it doesn't. I've tried lots of variations of it, but it never goes any further than the home screen for me now. "Start a run" doesn't do it for me. It just opens the app, and then I'm to do the rest myself. So now, Siri is slower than just doing it myself anyway.

This is the problem with Siri - you never know what you're going to get. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and the results vary from person to person.
 
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Yeah, that works for a lot of people, but not me, unfortunately. I used to say "Hey Siri, I'm going for a run" and the 3-second countdown timer would pop up. Now it doesn't. I've tried lots of variations of it, but it never goes any further than the home screen for me now. "Start a run" doesn't do it for me. It just opens the app, and then I'm to do the rest myself. So now, Siri is slower than just doing it myself anyway.

This is the problem with Siri - you never know what you're going to get. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and the results vary from person to person.

Try start an outdoor run. Doesn’t work with just run for me either.
 
"Raise to Speak" was too easy to activate for me on the Series 4.

If I'm talking and look at the time on my watch, Siri thinks I'm talking to her. My wife had the same issue, and I didn't believe her until it happened to me.

Turned it off on both watches. Will probably save a little battery that way.
 
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I do not think it is a Series 4 problem alone (I am still awaiting mine, one more week to go :)). I used the rise to speak from the early 5.0 (on series 3) and it worked. Not flawless, but 8 out of 10 times I would say. since upgrading my series 3 to either the GM or 5.01 (not sure) raise to speak works intermittent, sometimes even copying/typing the words I spoke ("set timer 3 minutes"), to immediately go blank after that. Timer is not set then. Pressing the crown works as usual without any problem...
 
On my experience, on any Apple device, Siri has only been really useful for setting a timer (because that seems to be the only thing that I can find that it will do reliably).

Apple’s new chief of AI has his work cut out for him, that’s for sure.
 
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I do use Hey Siri on my phone in the car to send text messages to people letting them know I'm on the way, running late, etc...

It usually works well unless there is a lot of road noise when I have the windows rolled down.
 
Try start an outdoor run. Doesn’t work with just run for me either.

This morning I gave it the best possible conditions. I went for my run at the usual time, started Overcast, started RunTemp, so it should recognise my normal routine. I raised my Watch and said "Hey Siri, start an outdoor run".

First time it failed, because Siri on the Watch has gotten incredibly unreliable. It's favourite phrase is now "Hold on". Second time it opened the Workout app and sat on the screen and I had to select run.

Whoever is in charge of Siri at Apple, this is a huge step backward. It's managed to unlearn the one thing I used it for, and introduce a bunch of "Hold on" incidents, and just plain failures.

Edit: Also, in a Scottish accent, it keeps saying "start a ron" or "let's go for a ron". I don't know who Ron is, but Siri thinks he's my best mate.
 
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