A voice quality increase is always welcome, but that’s the limit in cheeriness I can possibly endure.
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Apple Tweaks British and Australian Speaking Voices for Siri on HomePod
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Yeah... just yesterday, I tried to make a phone call, and was met with "Sorry, you need to be connected to the Internet to do that." This happened 4 times in a row.
Can these voices be used with real people too? I get confused when I walk outside my house or look away from my phone screen. I read online that actual folk speak in regional accents or something. I know Siri does because she says she’s my friend. But I’m intrigued as to whether Homo sapiens can also. Siri told me most of the letters in this Forum are written by the moderator. If this is the case then was this letter also written by them too? Siri! Can you help? You told me to spend that £500 quid on the book “How To Stop Being Gullible”. But she never told me what gullible meant. Another word I don’t understand is ‘Apocalypse’ - still, it’s not the end of the world is it? Hello? Siri?
(“Can we have comedian removed after the next ad break!”-Ed.)
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Shocking! I fully agree. In fact there’s nothing worse than people adopting a condescending disposition.
(BTW, readers - ‘Condescending’ means talking down to someone in a patronising manner)
(“Can we have comedian removed after the next ad break!”-Ed.)
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Shocking! I fully agree. In fact there’s nothing worse than people adopting a condescending disposition.
(BTW, readers - ‘Condescending’ means talking down to someone in a patronising manner)
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I wonder if the HomePod (and other i-Devices) pull the voice profiles from the cloud periodically as an automatic update? It definitely would not make sense for the responses to be composed on the server and then passed back to the devices as audio files.
Did you lose an internet connection four times in a row?
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Fully disagree. Maps' GPS voice instructions tend to be way better than Google Maps in my opinion. My gf always chooses Google Maps, but then I find myself happier when given directions by Siri and Apple Maps. Lane guidance, repeating of instructions at just the right time.... it all just fits my driving style better. I was impressed once by Google Maps telling me which exit to take out of a rather small roundabout, though.
I think the connection was flaky, but more importantly, it seemed like my cell signal was also flaky. It finally settled down about 5 minutes later; power cycled the phone as well. Strange that Siri wanted an internet connection to make a phone call.
Wow, what a difference in the Australian female voice. The accent has changed from a quite subtle one to a much more laconic and perky one. For the older Aussies here, think Kylie Moll...
That's probably your connection. The HomePod caches 30 seconds or so of the song before it will play, which takes a while on a slow connection. Mine often says "just a sec" it when I'm an 8mbps connection but the same HomePod is fine when it's on 70mbps.
I have 150Mbit internet, its not my connection. It's also instantaneous on iPad and iPhone. Its clearly a homepod issue.
Many of your scenarios appear to be natural use cases, I agree that Siri is not great at contextual understanding. But the Shortcuts app might solve most (maybe all?) of your example cases above. Apple has put the onus squarely on the user, but the Shortcuts app provides so much flexibility that it makes up for Siris lack of contextual intelligence in my book.
I noticed this improved Australian female Siri on my Apple Watch Series 3 yesterday morning. Hasn’t rolled out to my other devices yet, but it’s just a matter of time.
It’s immediately obvious in person how much more “human” the new voice sounds.
It’s immediately obvious in person how much more “human” the new voice sounds.
There a lot of things that Siri could do better. I would hope with the hiring of John Giannandrea, given his previous work with regard to AI at Google, things will only continue to improve. I use the Google app regularly on my iPhone and it works a whole hell of a lot better with speak-to-text recognition. Also, I prefer to use the UK and Australian male voices with Siri instead of the U.S. voices. As a public beta tester for the last several years, the only weird thing I've noticed that Siri is not doing well with the foreign voices is recognizing period (.) as a word, so when I press the Sleep/Wake button to text someone and then say "period", instead of . appearing on the screen, the word does. This same issue doesn't exist when using Dictation in the actual Messages app. I sent feedback to Apple's engineers about this. Also, for the love of all that's holy, I don't understand why they can't extend the amount of time Siri waits if I pause in speaking. Unless I know EXACTLY what to say when trying to send a text on the fly, it times out RIDICULOUSLY quickly and immediately wants to send that text even when I haven't finished saying what I intended.
The reason you haven’t noticed any changes to the US version of Siri is because they ALREADY made Siri’s voice more natural for that accent - about a year ago!
The other English Siri versions were left unchanged, sounding more robotic with limited inflexions. It’s the single reason I use the US Siri voice and not the Australian voice. When they update the Siri voice on iOS devices for the more natural Australian voice, I’ll change it. The US Siri voice is a little too ‘chirpy Californian bimbo’ for me, despite it sounding realistic.
The other English Siri versions were left unchanged, sounding more robotic with limited inflexions. It’s the single reason I use the US Siri voice and not the Australian voice. When they update the Siri voice on iOS devices for the more natural Australian voice, I’ll change it. The US Siri voice is a little too ‘chirpy Californian bimbo’ for me, despite it sounding realistic.
Over the past 24 hours, we've seen a handful of reports talking about a new update to the speaking voice of Siri on HomePod in a few regions. These reports are mostly located in the United Kingdom and Australia, and mention the British (Male and Female) and Australian (Male and Female) speaking voices for the assistant, specifically on Apple's HomePod smart speaker.
The change appears to be very subtle. MacRumors readers described the Australian Female and British Male voices as "more natural" and "much clearer," and similar reports have emerged about other voices. Although there are many different descriptions for each voice, the consensus appears to be that the tweaks make Siri sound more human-like.
HomePod users can choose any Siri voice no matter the region they are located in, but as of now the vast majority of these reports appear to be located in the same regions as the voice they represent. This may be the beginning of a wider rollout, but that's still unclear at this point.
Twitter user @callumjcoe recorded the difference between the current iteration of the Australian Female voice (on an iPad) and the updated voice (on HomePod). Of course, distortion and muddled sound quality from a recording don't provide a perfect example, but there is a slight change between the two heard in the video, which is likely much more pronounced in person.
As of writing, MacRumors hasn't noticed any similar updates to Siri on HomePod (for any voices) in the United States. Apple has updated Siri over the past year with improvements to the assistant's ability to recognize local businesses and destinations, as well as new jokes, but many Apple users remain frustrated with the technology. One of the last major updates to Siri came in iOS 11 in 2017, when Apple gave Siri a more natural voice that had better pronunciation and different inflection depending on what's being said.
In early 2018, Siri creator, co-founder, and former board member Norman Winarsky talked about the origins of Siri and the company's intentions for the assistant before Apple acquired it. According to the co-founder, Siri was originally meant to be incredibly intelligent in just a few key areas -- travel and entertainment -- and then "gradually extend to related areas" once it mastered each. Apple's acquisition pivoted Siri to an all-encompassing life assistant, and Winarsky said that this decision has likely led Apple to search "for a level of perfection they can't get."
Although unconfirmed, the new voice changes to Siri may be Apple's latest attempt to make the voice assistant more personable and easy to talk to, in the wake of ongoing user complaints. If the changes roll out to other regions, we'll update this article.
(Thanks Sebastian, Robert, and Jared!)
Article Link: Apple Tweaks British and Australian Speaking Voices for Siri on HomePod
With all that is wrong sith siri, this is what they focus on? The Austalian voice is the one thing i like.
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The only thing I do like about siri on the homepod are the voices with the accents. I chose Australian. What they need to fix is siri’s stupidity. After spending a considerable amount of money on siri compatible devices (i have 6 homepods) i junked them all and Alexa is dominant in my home and i am much much happier.
