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@mnsportsgeek

I played with having Siri read my messages, especially through my Air Pods Pro.
However trying to get Siri to execute any of the follow-up options was very hit or miss at best.
After a few frustrating days I gave up.
Did it read them via homepod? If it did, the identity verification worked perfectly.
 
Here is the bottom line.

New features on Siri mean NOTHING until such time as the existing features start working faster and more accurately.

It is beyond me that Apple was one of, if not the first, to make a voice assistant but now badly lags the likes of Amazon and Google and is NOT catching up from what I've seen, only falling further behind.

This is so accurate

It's incredibly depressing that this far into Siri, it is still so limited and barely functional at times.
 
Siri sets timers well. Siri sets reminders... reasonably well. And that's about all I feel I can rely on Siri to do.

There's no way I would trust Siri to do anything involving money.

I find Siri works best for me when I conceptually keep it in a pretty specific box. It can add stuff to Reminders. It can set a timer. It can call someone in my contacts or take dictation reasonably well. I tell my HomePod to put on the local radio station and it does that well. Sometimes I try something new and if it works I put it in my vocabulary of things I know Siri can handle. Where it gets frustrating is when I just start freestyling and expecting Siri to get it.
 
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I’m still shocked at how everyone has horrible experiences with Siri. Really don’t mean this in a “defend fruit company” way, but I have never had an issue with Siri. Maybe I just have the exact speech patterns she’s trained for? I can’t be the only one whose Siri experience has been at least mostly positive, right?
No, people have different use cases, speech patterns, and expectations. Add to that the fact that people generally are more likely to post complaints to the internet, and millions of folk’s personal experiences may not align to what you may read online.

Everyone’s not having horrible experiences, but those having experiences below their expectations are more apt to make sure that’s known. :)
 
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This is one of the costs of privacy. I like this. This is why I am more comfortable with an iPhone than whatever else. To me it's a small price.

Imagine the amounts of money Apple is turning down because of its own privacy regulations? Because most people don't care. They look at the features and don't think that much about what's going on under the hood, what data goes where. Some people would be disappointed and decry the decision, but where would they go? Android? Apple is basically turning away free money, and I thank them for it.
 
Then what exactly are the AI's that Apple is putting in, or supposed to be putting in (like for text in photo).
Once you open photos, you can search for all the things you used to be able to search for via Siri. Locations, time spans, people, text, etc. The amazing part is all the AI they’re putting in is working locally. There are obvious limitations… like an Android might know a picture you just added was a picture of Donna Summer because it checks in the cloud. For iDevices, outside of that the on device AI has been trained on, it only knows who it is when you tell it who it is.
 
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“Hey Siri, play ‘IPHONE’ by Rico Nasty.”

“Ok, placing an order for iPhone SE.”
She's good for controlling lights, setting timers, and forwarding reminders/appointments to my phone, but I wouldn't want Siri able to order things - once in a while she just goes completely nuts with misunderstanding, I expect it'd be more like:

"Hey Siri, set a timer for two hours."

"Okay, ordering two dozen incandescent lightbulbs."
 
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I can't even trust Siri to play the right song or call the right contact. Ain't no way I'd trust her to order something for me. Smart assistant? More like DUMB assistant. If it weren't because she's baked into iOS, Siri would be the least used assistant in the market.
I think that’s really the point the article is making, that Siri is not as smart as other assistants, and it’s because of the limitations of stricter privacy. This is talking about purchasing specifically, but I’ve read that Siri sometimes not doing what we ask can be traced back to privacy limitations as well.
That’s a trade off I’m fine with. I’m positive Google and Amazon make a lot of money from their more functional voice assistants, ones that have better recognition and can make purchases, but it’s at the cost of higher personal data and looser safety. The fact that Apple leaves that money on the table tells me they’re much more serious about privacy and security. (Let’s bring up the issue of CSAM later if/when it drops.)
 
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I'm always amazed how many people refer to Siri as "she".

Siri is not a "she" (or "he") but an "it". At least in English, gendered pronouns should be reserved for referencing actual humans (or animals), not algorithms wrapped up in voice recognition utilities.

I wonder how much of the frustration with Siri (or other voice assistants) stems from unreasonable expectations that result from even subconsciously thinking of it as a real, thinking AI.

I'm generally OK with Siri's functionalities, and I find it to be a great convenience is many ways. But it is still just a keyboard replacement connected to an advanced chat bot, and thus I don't expect it to succeed with arbitrary requests outside of particular syntaxes.

This illusion (admittedly pushed by marketing agents at all the big tech companies playing this market) that Siri is a kind of "plastic pal who's fun to be with" just feels ridiculous to me.

The same applies to addressing how "smart" one assistant is compared to another. It's an easy term to throw in, but it so confuses the reality that none of them are at all smart in any meaningful sense of the word. They can be degrees of "reliable," "functional," or "flexible," but none of them are "smart" or "dumb".
 
I wonder how much of the frustration with Siri (or other voice assistants) stems from unreasonable expectations that result from even subconsciously thinking of it as a real, thinking AI.

^^ That...
Relates to the below...

This illusion (admittedly pushed by marketing agents at all the big tech companies playing this market) that Siri is a kind of "plastic pal who's fun to be with" just feels ridiculous to me.
 
Siri is not a "she" (or "he") but an "it". At least in English, gendered pronouns should be reserved for referencing actual humans (or animals), not algorithms wrapped up in voice recognition utilities.

It's natural for folks to gravitate towards a pronoun when they are hearing a male or female voice though.
Humans are imperfect.

At least when it's addressing a "device", using an incorrect pronoun has no real consequences for anyone.
That's a plus I think.

What voice should an "it" have anyways?
 
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I turn that %$#@ off on Alexa too. It already triggrers enough without me asking it anything
 
I'm always amazed how many people refer to Siri as "she".

Siri is not a "she" (or "he") but an "it". At least in English, gendered pronouns should be reserved for referencing actual humans (or animals), not algorithms wrapped up in voice recognition utilities.
Correct or not, people call their boats she as well. We humanise objects all the time. I wouldn't get too hung up on it.
 
Correct or not, people call their boats she as well. We humanise objects all the time. I wouldn't get too hung up on it.

Studies have shown that a female voice is often seen as more commanding. It's why military and other aircraft use a female voice as it's warning and alert voice in the cockpit.
 
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Fix siri in every other possible way tho
I would rather use the word improve, rather than fix. Siri is a very useful tool, [and this is coming from somebody that uses dictation every single day through all my Apple devices/home automation], however; there’s always room for improvement with speech patterns, rate of speed at which Siri can decipher, and more accurate transcribing for emails, messages, note-taking etc.

But regardless, artificial intelligence/speech algorithms will never be perfect, it’s not possible, because everybody has different variances in terms of how they pronounce words, the rate of how fast they talk, tone, volume and delivery all play into how speech algorithms can decipher what the user is saying. It’s equally just as important for Apple to continue to improve Siri, but as much as it is for the user to understand that they also can alter their speech patterns to make the experience more efficient.
 
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