Well, I am Dutch with the latest Siri (iOS 18.3) installed. It gives the wrong answer. It says there’s nothing planned on 7 februari in Dutch. What was your exact phrase in Dutch to give you the correct answer?
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Apple Brings in New Exec to 'Fix' Siri and Apple Intelligence
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That image is the "i found this on the web"-answer from Siri and not the correct answer "June, 13th 2025"
Ah, so the reply was useless. I’ve tried several times in Dutch to ask Siri when is the next Friday 13th. Never was able to give me a correct answer.
You should be flying while asking, maybe?
I just asked my HomePod mini, in a clear voice, in a quiet room (so no noise interference), "Hey Siri, when is the next Friday the 13th?", and she very confidently replied, "It's Tuesday, February 18th, 2025". In English, in the US, within several hundred miles of Apple's headquarters - so, basically in the same environment (language, nationality, accent, etc.) as their developers.
If Siri can't give the correct answer, she should say, "sorry, I am unable to answer that", rather than confidently stating misinformation. A tool with limitations is still useful (you simply work within those limitations), a tool that sometimes does the wrong thing while giving no outward indication of failure is considerably less useful, because you have to double-check all the answers anyway - it's untrustworthy.
For some cases, where a tool has limitations, you can learn workarounds, in order to use the tool within its limitations. Siri has trouble with decimal points. If I say, in a normal conversational tone, "Hey Siri, what's 635.2 divided by 1.78" she will confidently respond "2 divided by 1 is 2" - just throwing away the "635." and the ".78" - you might be able to argue that she somehow missed the ".78" because it's at the end, but there's absolutely nothing to excuse dropping the "635." from the middle of a sentence that you're parsing.
I've learned that if I say, "Hey Siri, what's 635 POINT 2 divided by 1 POINT 78" (yes, basically shouting "point" each time), then I'll get back the correct "635.2 divided by 1.78 is approximately 356.8539". It has nothing to do with pronunciation or clarity - a normal human in the same room would have understood what I said just fine. And they'd look at me funny if I asked them in the manner that I've found I have to use when asking Siri.
If Siri can't give the correct answer, she should say, "sorry, I am unable to answer that", rather than confidently stating misinformation. A tool with limitations is still useful (you simply work within those limitations), a tool that sometimes does the wrong thing while giving no outward indication of failure is considerably less useful, because you have to double-check all the answers anyway - it's untrustworthy.
For some cases, where a tool has limitations, you can learn workarounds, in order to use the tool within its limitations. Siri has trouble with decimal points. If I say, in a normal conversational tone, "Hey Siri, what's 635.2 divided by 1.78" she will confidently respond "2 divided by 1 is 2" - just throwing away the "635." and the ".78" - you might be able to argue that she somehow missed the ".78" because it's at the end, but there's absolutely nothing to excuse dropping the "635." from the middle of a sentence that you're parsing.
I've learned that if I say, "Hey Siri, what's 635 POINT 2 divided by 1 POINT 78" (yes, basically shouting "point" each time), then I'll get back the correct "635.2 divided by 1.78 is approximately 356.8539". It has nothing to do with pronunciation or clarity - a normal human in the same room would have understood what I said just fine. And they'd look at me funny if I asked them in the manner that I've found I have to use when asking Siri.
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"Just works" ha ha ha ha ha ha 🤣 Thanks, I needed a good laugh.
Siri didn't tell you the right answer, it did a web query for "Friday the 13th" and showed you the results. That top entry is just reporting the title of a Reddit post on a subreddit focused on Friday the 13th (r/fridaythe13th). It's basically the correct answer by accident. Siri has no idea what the results of the search mean. You could have just as easily ended up with the top result being something about the "Friday the 13th" movie franchise. You're giving Siri way too much credit here. (And, moreover, the web results approach does not work if you're not looking at a screen - so it doesn't work asking Siri on a HomePod, or via AirPods, or in a car over Bluetooth.)
Siri is a useful tool, but is extremely limited in what it can do, gives every indication of being a patchwork of things thrown together to try to imitate a human, and Apple sells it hard as something where you can just ask it things conversationally and get correct answers.
We'd be in a much better state if they had started off with a clear published syntax of two dozen things Siri could understand, in a specific format, and then continually expand upon that until you get to something resembling the ability to understand normal conversational English (or other languages), but, instead, Apple heavily marketed Siri right from the start as being able to do something it clearly couldn't do, and left it to the developer team to scramble to try to stitch together a working system out of an enormous pile of patches. Very Frankensteinian. You can see this in the way that specific queries will work one month, and then be broken the next, and then work again the month after that.
I'm not an "Apple hater", by the way, as you keep trying to pigeonhole anyone who calls Apple on anything they've gotten wrong. You can go check my 20+ year post history here. I use Apple hardware and software because they so often get things right (my first computer was an original Apple ][, serial # 893), and I've been called an "Apple apologist" on numerous occasions here. I am neither. I will support them when they get things right, and call them out when they get things wrong.
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“Siri has no idea” ? Seriously ?
Just a little reality check, Siri IS a tool. It is a tool, nothing more than that.
In my case not even “AI” (a fancy word for another kind of tool, by the way).
I’m not expecting Siri to have “any idea”, but to do what it did: a web search. Which gave me a relevant result.
I don’t know why in US English the result is that meaningless Tuesday anyway 🤷🏻♂️
I think the different idea we have about Siri is because I have different expectations. I’m using it as a tool, nothing more. I don’t have “conversations” with my iPhone / iPad. If I have to do a more complex calculation I’d use the app. Just as an example. If I have to set a reminder, turn off my TV set or ask for weather forecast, then I can ask Siri.
My guess is that:
A. Apple doesn’t have the talent to do so (otherwise we already should have a smart Siri);
B. It will cost Timmy too much money to make it happen (they already take a very slow approach to make it available in all the common languages);
C. A mix of A and B
They’re still doing very, very few things. Apple is 1000 times bigger these days and their product lineup is still very small compared to much smaller tech companies in the same business.
March or April we probably see new MacBook Airs and iPads. Those will be probably just chip swaps, nothing more.
For the iPad it has been three years without an upgrade.
Innovation my ass (it’s Phil schillers words)
Their most expensive computer has an almost 2 years old chip. They didn’t even bother to slap an M3. Probably the studios and the pro will get the M4 weeks before the M5 is released, and won’t get upgraded in a couple or three years. So, their blaming intel was only a convenient excuse for not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. It’s their own friggin chip!!!
Nope. There were people at Apple who wanted to improve Siri using some kind of generative AI. But TimApple was in fear that simething bad could happen and Apple wouldn‘t be in control of the answers. My feeling with Apple Intelligence is that it will end like Apple Maps.
This post didn't age well. Record earnings. But I'm sure there are some things to point to that would indicate some cracks that are going to become full-fledged holes in the wall. (Not!)
So you are suggesting that Tim Apple made the right call. Something that he is paid (handsomely) to do.
The story why Apple was in fear to loose control, is well known - this is no suggestion. So Apple didn’t recognize the importance of AI. Today Apple has about 2.5billion active devices - most of them not ready for AI. Including €4000 Apple Vision Pro.
No matter what AI is in its infancy and is on track toward being a commodity - same as search.
I would ask out if the totality of all handsets out there how many are capable of running local ai with complete privacy for the user.
So I believe apple has time to move forward with its strategy.
As far as I know, Gemini isn’t even able to set an alarm offline.
There is no privacy in Google’s products. Not even for basic tasks