Apple Seeking Analyst to Monitor Siri Complaints Trending on Social Media

[markfc]

Yup...

 

[stylinexpat]

Google is far more accurate unfortunately

 

[Kabeyun]

ONLY NOW?!

 

[macduke]

Time to dump some screenshots. Some of these may have been posted by me before. Some haven't. My only regret is that more often than not I forgot to take a screenshot when Siri is dumb.

Let's start with this gem. I literally said "Hey Siri" to my iPhone and she cut me off with "Hi, Aaron" I went over to my phone to see this on the screen.



This time she cut me off in the middle again, and got really snarky. Given she screwed up, I was actually kinda pissed when she said this.



This time when she cut me off I was convinced she was suffering from rampancy, similar to the Cortana AI in the Halo video game universe.



Sometimes she just forgets things and then instantly remembers. It's maddening.



This one is fun. This one is from early January 2018, a month before the Winter Olympics started. She just blew right past them by a couple years.



Speaking of forgetting things, she does this a lot.



And she also forgets what language I have setup on my device (English U.S.).



This screenshot was taken on August 30, 2018.



I don't even…



The phrase was "Hey Siri, find my wife."



To be continued because I ran out of upload capacity for a single post…

 

[Ggvfvgbffbf]

I posted a thread here 2 and a half years ago as to Siri not being able to answer the simple question ‘How old is The Queen?’

I’m English, in England, with my Apple account registered in England, with my Apple products in England. Siri knows this and fires up location services just to confirm.

The question is asked in the present tense and there is only one answer any British person is looking for when asking that question. (i.e. the age of the current Queen of England).

Alas, Siri still insists on giving the age at death of the long dead Queen Victoria (although seems to get it right for people outside the U.K).

It’s absolutely pathetic that this hasn’t been improved in 2.5 years. I’ll check back in another 2.5 years.

The Queen is 92 btw.

 

[macduke]

…continued…

She didn't use a number. She said one moment, but I never heard back from her.



Oh really? I guess I'll go there!



Siri, not sure when the next Super Bowl 44 is, even though that doesn't make sense and I didn't ask her.



So she didn't understand this:



And yet understood this:



Did you spot the difference? She added, on her own, an apostrophe. Then she didn't understand the query with an apostrophe, and wasn't smart enough to realize that I have something named that without the apostrophe. If I remember right this happened multiple times and I eventually renamed it "Studio Desk Light" even though multiple lights are connected to the switch.

I mean, Siri is definitely getting better over the years, but when she is bad, she is really bad. And it's not saying much when you start out from such a low place.

 

[4487549]

Everyone, fireball Twitter now!

 

[stylinexpat]

Everyone, fireball Twitter now!

We need to Tag Twitter to this thread

 

[B4U]

…continued…

She didn't use a number. She said one moment, but I never heard back from her.

View attachment 824629

Oh really? I guess I'll go there!

View attachment 824632

Siri, not sure when the next Super Bowl 44 is, even though that doesn't make sense and I didn't ask her.

View attachment 824634

So she didn't understand this:

View attachment 824637

And yet understood this:

View attachment 824638

Did you spot the difference? She added, on her own, an apostrophe. Then she didn't understand the query with an apostrophe, and wasn't smart enough to realize that I have something named that without the apostrophe. If I remember right this happened multiple times and I eventually renamed it "Studio Desk Light" even though multiple lights are connected to the switch.

I mean, Siri is definitely getting better over the years, but when she is bad, she is really bad. And it's not saying much when you start out from such a low place.

About the apostrophe, I literally ask her the same question using a slightly different possessive form and she messed up...
When is Canadian Thanksgiving? vs When is Canada's Thanksgiving?
She gave me 2 different answers...

 

[jeffe]

"Based on user feedback, the employee will be required to provide recommendations for next steps on areas where the Siri user experience could be improved."

I hope this is not a new initiative. They really should have been doing this for a long time now.

 

[pika2000]

I disagree. Queries like the one highlighted in the article don't require extraordinary data collection. In fact Siri did well in the Loop Ventures questionnaire in categories that would be adversely affected by privacy and limited data collection.

The main barrier for me in using any personal assistants is their ability in recognizing my voice commands. If they don’t recognize my voice commands 99% of a time, it became frustrating. This is the biggest hurdle imo. You cannot be just 70 or 80% accurate.

We can look at how “bad” Siri is at recognizing voice commands, especially in different dialects and languages. I don’t think this can be significantly improved without actually collecting people’s data. Google has a way lead thanks to Google Voice and Google putting voice search.

 

[trifid]

Wait and this position is being opened now in 2019? Where was Apple in the past 7 years? I guess they weren't listening, that explains a lot. Typical Apple.
[doublepost=1551751000][/doublepost]

Preach, I try it every new device for about a 1/2 hours, Facepalm at the stupidity and turn if off. Last attempt was about 2 weeks ago with a brand new Xr for the other half. Just ridiculously flawed. If you provide all the necessary data, it should be able to do simple searches.

Siri, worse than a caveman™

 

[hop]

Alternatively they could add the ability to file bugs on Siri, with Siri itself, like the way you can send feedback on issues in Maps: "Hey Siri, that's not right/what I meant" etc., with the ability to defer going through the process until later if you're busy. It could live inside Settings/Siri, and also be invoked in response to you insulting Siri in response to it getting something wrong ("Hey Siri, why are you so ****?") etc.

 

[hagjohn]

Cortana is much better than Siri. You can tell Cortana to remind you to pick up milk (or whatever) from a specific store and it will remind you as you are going by it to stop in and buy milk (or whatever).

And she answered the direct flight from LAX to Tokyo post above.

 

[rikscha]

Apples problem is they don’t know how to build a good search engine.
You see the same in Maps. You have to be super accurate to find the right place or address while in G maps you can be fairly inaccurate to get to the correct result. G is also taking into consideration your current location. The times that I’m looking for a place in London and Maps takes me to a place outside of Europe is appaling.
Siri is usually good when you phrase things simple and correctly. It fails otherwise. That’s also the reason you can’t ask Siri to do 2 things at the same time. Pretty annoying having to summon her twice just to turn the lights on and turn the heating up

 

[carlsson]

One would think that all serious companies already have a dozen of such employees....

 

[pratikindia]

In iOS 12, Siri does not understand anything and clearly. It does not listen unless I shout and does not understand words. Never had the issue in iOS 11. Siri is a shame.

 

[Shanghaichica]

If you have ever complained about Siri on Twitter or likewise, your feedback could actually make its way to Apple executives.

Screenshot via /r/SiriFail​

A recent Apple job listing seeks an engineering program manager to "monitor what the world is saying about Siri through social media, news, and other sources." This will include detecting "Siri issues that are going viral or otherwise trending" and reporting them to the Siri team and its leadership.

Based on user feedback, the employee will be required to provide recommendations for next steps on areas where the Siri user experience could be improved. The person will also work with Apple's marketing teams to ensure external information like Apple support documents are updated to clear up misunderstandings.

The employee will have a secondary responsibility of working alongside Siri software engineers to ensure the success of Apple marketing campaigns, press events, product announcements, and product launches involving Siri.

As noted by VentureBeat, which first discovered the job listing, the employee will be able to "drive rapid-response solutions," hopefully meaning the company will quickly address any trending issues before they become embarrassing headlines like the major FaceTime privacy bug unearthed in late January.

Any improvements to Siri would be welcomed, as the assistant is widely considered to have fallen behind its rivals Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Siri has already shown some signs of progress lately under the leadership of Apple's recently promoted artificial intelligence chief John Giannandrea.

Article Link: Apple Seeking Analyst to Monitor Siri Complaints Trending on Social Media

Lol
I just tried the first one on my HomePod and it got it right and added the reminder. I don’t have issues with Siri understanding me. It could be a whole lot smarter but it usually understands me perfectly.
[doublepost=1551776162][/doublepost]

The fact that this job has to exist seems to be an admission by Apple that the ways they've been testing Siri internally don't mimic how normal people interact with Siri. They've finally realized something that most of us on this board have known for years.

As someone who also uses Google Home products, I'm amazed how I can sometimes say something to Google Home that doesn't come out exactly the way I meant to say it yet somehow, it manages to understand what I meant to say and it gives me the information I needed. Looks like Apple's trying to get there with Siri, too. I guess monitoring social media for screenshots of Siri screwups is one way to do that. It doesn't seem like a particularly efficient method, though.

I don’t find any difference in understanding me between Siri and the google assistant. The difference for me is that the google assistant is just a lot better because it can do a lot more.
[doublepost=1551777405][/doublepost]

View attachment 824626 I posted a thread here 2 and a half years ago as to Siri not being able to answer the simple question ‘How old is The Queen?’

I’m English, in England, with my Apple account registered in England, with my Apple products in England. Siri knows this and fires up location services just to confirm.

The question is asked in the present tense and there is only one answer any British person is looking for when asking that question. (i.e. the age of the current Queen of England).

Alas, Siri still insists on giving the age at death of the long dead Queen Victoria (although seems to get it right for people outside the U.K).

It’s absolutely pathetic that this hasn’t been improved in 2.5 years. I’ll check back in another 2.5 years.

The Queen is 92 btw.

I still don’t think it’s unreasonable for Siri not to know which queen you are talking about. There are many Queen’s in the world. However my google home got it right.

 

[masciam]

I still don’t think it’s unreasonable for Siri not to know which queen you are talking about. There are many Queen’s in the world. However my google home got it right.

I tried asking Siri in Portuguese “Quantos anos tem a rainha da Inglaterra” which literally means “how old is the queen of England”. It showed me a random restaurant in Chelsea that’s 9 thousand km from where I am. In Portuguese it’s useless for anything other than setting timers. Google assistant got it right.

 

[RealMonster]

+1000. As frustratingly outdated as Siri is I'd rather wait for secure and privacy-conscious updates than the ******** that is Amazon/Google data collection. They seem to be pivoting Siri slightly to a workflow model via Shortcuts but that's not what 90% of people think they want right now.

Siri isn’t at the point yet that they need to worry about data collection, they need to worry about the basics again. It’s not that Siri can’t handle complex queries, it’s that she sometimes can’t handle the simplest queries. Simple searches, adding to lists or reminders, finding a contact. I’ve had Siri fail at all of those in the last 3 months.

We’ll worry about data collection after she can add a list of items to a grocery list as a list, not just one long item.

 

[jlc1978]

Also, I hope Siri can be multilingual, or at least have the ability to change the language easily (like the keyboard).

That would be a real breakthrough. A voice assistant that can misunderstand what you say in multiple languages.

 

[Mr. Donahue]

They should hit up reddit. There’s a a subreddit called r/sirifails.

 

[44267547]

Time to hire engineers to fix or recreate Siri

Isn’t that why Apple hired John Giannandrea almost a year ago from Google to revamp Series A.I?

https://www.theverge.com/platform/a...annandrea-joining-apple-machine-learning-siri

 

[LizKat]

It will be extremely hard (or slow) to improve Siri without Google-like data collection practices.
I do hope Siri to get better. The race is still early, and as good as Google assistant is, it's still not that good.

Also, I hope Siri can be multilingual, or at least have the ability to change the language easily (like the keyboard).

I would like Siri to become proficient enough to spot differences in a friend's emailed description of an intended walk to an Apple Store in NYC, versus a notification from her that she had moved house.

Read this note from said friend, let's call her "lastname firstname"... her email was sent to me after I asked her why not postpone stepping out to a local Apple retail store until the weather is not so crazy. She replied:

"well they didn't have the cable in stock there anyway, but now there is one on hold for me at 14th st and the river, I'll go tomorrow."​

Now read the little fine-print advisory from Siri that popped up in that email, right above body of the message.

"Siri found updated contact info in this email lastname firstname 14th st"​

and a link for me to update the contact info I keep for my friend.

SMH Siri.

 

[stanhope]

Siri has improved a great deal and most of the people criticizing it need to update their "Siri Sucks" software.

You clearly got a brain modeled after siri