Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I recently purchased 4x Sonos Play 1's and am very impressed. Being able to drive it with Siri or Alexa would be awesome.
Whichever service gets Sonos integration first wins for me (pending usability as well).

But if Alexa with Sonos only supports Amazon Music, I might be in a pickle.
 
Any improvement will be welcome, I barely use Siri now just because its not that useful.
Exactly how I feel. In fact I find it much faster and reliable to navigate my phone using my fingers.

Besides it is awkward to speak to Siri in public places.
 
So after years of doing little with Siri and squandering their lead, Apple is not working to catch up? Sounds like poor Apple leadership.
 
For those who are having trouble getting your phone to recognize your "Hey Siri" command, try re-training the voice recognition in Settings->Siri by re-toggling the Allow "Hey Siri" toggle. When doing the voice training, use all different intonations and volumes to simulate different situations e.g. talking to your phone from across the room versus mumbling to it softly.

Most people that I know that have trouble with "Hey Siri" trained it by saying "hey Siri" the exact same way every time. Turns out she only recognizes that one intonation when you do that!

Apple could do better here by being a bit laxer with the voice recognition. It's not the end of the world if someone else accidentally triggers my Siri once in a blue moon.
 
This kind of reminds be of when Nextel was popular about 15 years ago. I thought it was really rude when people would use it in public. No headset, and they couldn't just "talk" into the phone when doing the walkie-talkie feature, they had to yell.
Apologies for going off topic but I was triggered by your mention of Nextel. I was one of those ******s! Worse, my friends would skip the chirp and start talking. Wreaked havoc in meetings.:oops: Worst of all we'd beach about people who used speaker phones in public. Completely oblivious to our loud as hell "Hey, whatchu doin'?" Fun fact: I still have a Nextel Blackberry 7100i laying in a drawer. Had to dispose of the battery but couldn't let go of the phone. Good times... good times.

/nostalgia over
 
Any improvement will be welcome, I barely use Siri now just because its not that useful.

I agree that any improvement will be welcome. However, I've found Siri to be better every time I do try it. I just asked my watch last night, "What is 31$ plus a 15% tip" and I was absolutely delighted by the fact Siri heard me perfectly, the response time was much faster than I remember, AND the query worked, it gave the correct answer and it was useful.

But, I don't disagree that I would love to have more experiences like the above. Any improvements will always be welcome.
 
Can't we get rid of the rumor that Apple is creating an "Alexa like speaker"? Apple execs have already come out to say that they believe the best experience is one you can take everywhere with you. (iPhone)
 
If it's better to roll out services gradually over time I'd rather they took time at WWDC/the iPhone event to tell us everything they've added to Siri than saved up features for a massive update.
 
I think Apple is waking up to their flawed understanding of what people hope for Siri.

I think they saw most people used it for setting timers or finding out the temperature and have realized that those were the things people COULD use it for reliably, but not necessarily just what they wanted it for.

Now they are waking up to the idea that they need to expand it out. I'm very happy with Siri, especially with my Apple Watch, when it's something I know it can do, but I just don't ask much of it.
 



iOS-9-Siri-250x213.jpg
A collection of the world's top-selling smartphone makers, including Apple, Samsung, Huawei, LG, and Xiaomi, are all planning to double down on artificial intelligence features on handsets launching this year, and beyond.

According to industry sources (via DigiTimes), the companies are hoping an improvement to AI assistant capabilities will "ramp up market shares in 2017."

For Apple, that means the company is gearing up to add in an "enhanced Siri" to next-generation iPhone devices, although it's unclear whether that means the upcoming 2017 iPhone 8, or another model launching after this year. It's not specified what exactly an enhanced version of Siri will be able to accomplish, but an overall improvement to voice recognition and better contextual understanding of user requests might be part of the update.

DigiTimes' report specifically references Apple's acquisition of machine learning and AI startup Turi last August as a way that the company intends to bolster Siri's reliability with consumers, "as well as the market share" over other AI assistants like Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana, and Google Assistant.
In terms of competition, Huawei -- as the third-largest smartphone maker in the world -- is reportedly ready to battle Apple and Samsung, with AI as a leading feature. Huawei recently launched the Mate 9 in the United States with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant pre-installed, giving users an easier way to navigate the smartphone, and representing its first move in the fight to overcome Apple and Samsung in the AI space.

Google last year launched its Google Pixel smartphone with Google Assistant, and other smartphone vendors have already been looked at to promote adoption of the Assistant, including Xiaomi. In a comparison video that pitted Siri against Google Assistant, YouTuber Marques Brownlee ultimately discovered that while Siri gave him more information, Google Assistant was the more personable and enjoyable AI experience.

Samsung is believed to be launching the Galaxy S8 sometime in Spring 2017 as an attempt to put the Note7 in the past for good, and the new smartphone is currently rumored to include an AI assistant named Bixby, "which is likely to become a main feature of Samsung's next-generation flagship model," according to industry sources.

LG is said to be in talks with both Google and Amazon to leverage each company's voice assistant in LG products, including the addition of Alexa into a collection of LG home appliances, as well as its upcoming smartphone the LG G6.

AI assistants have become increasingly popular over the past few years, and Apple has only gained competition in the space as Siri remained largely unchanged over the past few iOS updates. The company is rumored to be launching an Echo-like speaker as well, which would place Siri as a constant present in the user's home and include the ability to play music, get news headlines, and more, without needing to interact with their iPhone. In response, last year it was reported that Amazon is working on an updated Echo with a 7-inch touchscreen to "fend off competition" from Apple and Google Home.

Article Link: Apple Working on 'Enhanced Siri' Capabilities for Next-Generation iPhones
About time.

Talk about dropping the ball.

They'd better do some serious enhancing to stay relevant. Or in a few years time history may look to this moment as the point at which the balance of innovation tipped out of apples favour, and they started losing the race.

Though I still have faith that Apple have some home runs up their sleeve
 
Go to Settings>Siri>Voice Feedback and set it to With Switch.

Thanks, this will save me.

Apologies for going off topic but I was triggered by your mention of Nextel. I was one of those ******s! Worse, my friends would skip the chirp and start talking. Wreaked havoc in meetings.:oops: Worst of all we'd beach about people who used speaker phones in public. Completely oblivious to our loud as hell "Hey, whatchu doin'?" Fun fact: I still have a Nextel Blackberry 7100i laying in a drawer. Had to dispose of the battery but couldn't let go of the phone. Good times... good times.

/nostalgia over

I ended getting a Nextel phone, but I think it was Motorola. I hated using the Walkie-talkie, and I couldn't understand people holding long conversations using it. Sometimes very personal stuff was said for everyone to hear.

I guess it is the same thing as social media now. I do not use most forms of it. A few forums, and occasionally WoW is about as much as I get into social media.

I think Apple is waking up to their flawed understanding of what people hope for Siri.

I hope you are right, as the competition seems to be leaving Siri behind. Siri has been relatively unchanged since the beginning, and it is now mostly a gimmick / novelty.

I haven't used any of the competition, but from the advertisements, and videos, Siri has some catching up to do.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 69Mustang
Siri's future got a blow when Apple declined its original developers (now making Samsung's Viv)
Since then, scalar development using its modular structure (which a.o. allows for true "human" contextual intelligence) went back to incremental, function-by-function development.
I am not saying that this means patchwork, but it is quite close.
Opening up Siri for 3rd parties was a remarkable strike, for the positive, but also a reaction from the pressure to create something new as structural intrinsic development stalled over the years, sadly.
What "enhanced" Siri is, remains to be seen - but there is never shortage of marketing fluff to conceal quirky management of things...
 
Last edited:
Please please please let this be true. Please. Did I say please enough?

A useless Siri is one reason why I switched to Android. It's a shame that Siri hasn't been addressed sooner -- but late is better than never. I just hope that Apple hasn't waited too late -- the competition is going to start pulling way (rather, they already have) and if Apple is only playing catch-up from now on, Siri will never be as good as the competition. Siri needs some major work.

I want the iPhone to have it all. I'm rooting for Apple. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.