Apple Acquires AI Startup Voysis to Improve Siri

[mi7chy]

Still not sure why Apple insists on lagging so far behind with Siri.

It’s kind of astonishing how much Alexa has grown passed Siri. Maybe, I’m expecting too much, but I feel like Siri has actually gotten worse over the past two years.

A company is only as capable as its leader since that person sets the bar. Hiring people more competent will only make Tim Cook look less qualified and may take his job. So, that's why Siri has gotten worse since Tim Cook took over.

 

[Mr. Dee]

Siri needs all the help it can get.

 

[iBreatheApple]

Yes it is.

Not for me. For me it’s the lack of being able to answer questions rather It just performs a google search and shows me the results, which often don’t provide the information I need.

 

[tennisproha]

Understanding speech is not what’s wrong with Siri

Hmm, I’m not sure. Do you want to search for that?

 

[Patriks7]

Understanding speech is not what’s wrong with Siri

Are you sure about that? Quite often my Siri is unable to get simple things like "hey Siri, set a timer for two hours and fifteen minutes" correct.

 

[Jury]

Apple really sucks at improving SIRI and it's supposed to unlock the device through VOICE ID on iPhone 12 and this acquisition means nothing.

 

[44267547]

Siri executes really well at tasking within the iPhone, I.e. such as scheduling, calendar events, notifications, etc. Where Siri struggles, is external searches, voice recognition in terms of deciphering and dictation of certain words/phrases. Altogether, I think Siri accomplishes what it needs to, It’s not broken, but It’s not as advanced as its competition.

 

[femike]

Siri to me hasn't improved significantly. It has improved of course largely to Apple employees manually activating phrases. Siri can't under simple context, or words that are not spoken clearly, words that pronouced slightly differently. If I have to repeat it just once, I manually type it in. It needs loads more work done on it with ongoing commitment.

 

[Dezmond]

Whenever I want to use it it not works and talking normally around my phone it will randomly activate and call people. Turned off until its improved. Although at work we occasionally have funny random unwanted Siri moments with it so at least the bad quality has a fun factor

 

[sakagura]

yeah. It kind of sucks at that too. It’s like autocorrect, it defaults to more common words that fit common language structures. Unfortunately with music, names and numerous other things Siri still struggles to get it right.

Thing is, if you want a super duper really smart and responsive digital assistant then it would need to be quite invasive and know a lot about you. A company that offers that might be friendly today and promise privacy, but you can't guarantee that same company will have such morals and ethics in 10 years. It is hard enough to keep new series of politicians from behaving destructive as many countries know very well. In a decade or two Apple might become a complete tool for a totalitarian superpower somewhere. The risk is always present if we as a society are so lazy we don't take preventative action to combat the amount of insanity, false information, subversion, scams, privacy violations.

So it's not a good trade off. It's is better to keep the digital assistant as a simple tool only when you really need it. Do everything you can manually, sometimes not being lazy is the fastest solution.

 

[User 6502]

Same. Response. Every. Time. To the word. For as long as I can remember.

That is deliberate. If they used a different response, even just by a word, people and analysts would try to read into it and come up with the most absurd theories, maybe even affecting stock price.

 

[cicalinarrot]

Thought Siri was already perfect, since they released her and then left her untouched for all these years.

 

[Robert.Walter]

Maybe thirty third time will be the charm.

 

[BuffaloTF]

Huh, that hasn’t been my experience. I’m constantly impressed with how accurately it understands me. It just doesn’t do much that’s useful.

It works fine for me as well -- but anyone with an accent, the type one might have from speaking a different language as their primary language, it butchers the results.

 

[nylonsteel]

aapl has aquired several companies over these years
siri is still not compelling enough for me to leave google functions
sorta dissapointing
thought siri was gonna be better than goog

 

[Jedwardoo]

Siri is the dumbest of all the smart assistants.

Out of curiosity.

What do you ask Siri that it still needs to be impro

 

[DaveWotzit]

My Siri's trigger so randomly these days. It's just got to a point I just ignore them.

 

[mazz0]

It works fine for me as well -- but anyone with an accent, the type one might have from speaking a different language as their primary language, it butchers the results.

I have a Yorkshire accent* so I’m surprised it finds me particularly easy. Regardless, it can’t do much that’s especially helpful when it does understand you.

*mine int ’alf as awesome as tha one

 

[DaRev]

It’s time Siri answer with spoken results instead of wiki pages and other rubbish.

 

[dazed]

Siri is just terrible so anything this company can do to help will be appreciated

 

[DanBig]

But it actually is... easily the biggest problem.

While some is a factor of understanding what is being asked (language comprehension)

Most of the issues I deal with Siri is not the understanding on what said, its not having the skills or knowledge to answer.

As an example I can ask my phone or watch to read me someones text message, but I can't get it to read me the active windows text. If I don't have my glasses on I'm blind! So while I can get to the app and the screen I need to see, I can't read it and the zoom action (finger stretch) doesn't help as its not always expected in the given app.

It doesn't offer a clean banter to focus in to what I'll looking for, even if I tell it. As an example: I'm cooking a meal I have a recipe on my iPad. You would think I could ask it to read the steps off one at a time! Nope! Even if I would to create a Page document Siri can't read it in a stepped process. I have to manually highlight the given bulleted step. The AI engine with in the A series APU should have the understanding on what is being asked.

This also gets into knowledge. You would think I could ask Siri how many people are now infected or have died with COVID-19 in a given state. Nope! All it will do is here's a web page.

I can list a dozen things more things I wish Siri would do that it just can't.

 

[hxlover904]

It’s gotten worse and the behavior is so erratic. It will correctly dictate a sentence, “load” backspace the entire sentence that it had correct, and re-type something that it completely misheard. I don’t get it.

This! This happens to me all the time. What is going on with this? It clearly understood what I said because it typed it right initially. And then it goes back and autocorrects it. Which make zero sense. Why on earth is autocorrect running on dictated text??

 

[McTool]

Understanding speech is not what’s wrong with Siri

Maybe in English. Not in foreign languages like Dutch. It’s a disaster.

 

[SBlue1]

Understanding speech is not what’s wrong with Siri

It IS the biggest hurdle to use Siri, and since I can't pass it I have no idea how dumb or useful Siri is. Especially if you are not using Siri in English. I got Siri set up in German so when I ask how did the Green Bay Packers play its shows me the nearest bakery since there is no word Packers in German nor a city called Green Bay in Germany. When I ask to play some Foo Fighters it just answers some random similar sounding trash. It would be a huge improvement if you could set a secondary language. Only useful thing I use Siri for is timers.

 

[jonnysods]

I'd really like to see them find a way to make Siri as fast as Google's voice search. Understands Australian perfectly, and is blazing fast. Can't tell you how many errors it makes with my Aussie drawl.... and yes, I have it set to Australian!