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Apple's Machine Learning Has Cut Siri's Error Rate by a Factor of Two
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What disappoints me is that in 1987 Apple showed a concept video of a device called the "Knowledge Navigator". I would have thought that nearly three decades later Apple would be leading the way in the area of intelligent assistants. It's not often that you see Apple playing catch-up, nor should they care to, but this is something Apple must work on.
Still renders the common name "Josiah" as "Joe Seiyu" 90% of the time. BONUS: There doesn't seem to be anyone in the USA with that name. It appears to be more common in Japan.
FIX THIS APPLE!!! You're ruining *EVERTHINGY!!!*
(Yeah. I went there.)
FIX THIS APPLE!!! You're ruining *EVERTHINGY!!!*
(Yeah. I went there.)
This has been my experience also. Siri commands that once worked can suddenly stop working. I can watch the words appear on the screen and then Siri will do something else completely stupid. If anything this problem has gotten worse and not better. I love the idea of Siri but it's execution is terrible.
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I completely agree about working offline. We already know the iPhone can do voice to text on it's own because Dragon Dictate works fine. So why can't Siri perform simple requests when there is no internet? I live the PNW and when I'm driving there is sometimes no internet. Very frustrating.
I love your second suggestion. When Siri is too stupid just send the request to the smarter AI.
Aren't you the same guy that was complaining about the childishness of iMessage in iOS 10 just a few days ago, and swears he's leaving for Android because it's "for adults"? It seems strange to me that someone proclaiming to be an adult would think that your response is somehow damning of Siri, because it seems like only a 12 year old would even think to ask Siri something so stupid, let alone find it amusing.
i just did that and it worked fine for me - returned similar results as google did - and the voice recognition worked fine
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i suspect if we listened to them we'd hear slurring and stuttering - when i speak normally to siri she understands me 95-99% of the time. I'd also like them to put an android phone next to an iPhone and compare the accuracy there. i bet its close.I wonder why kind of accents do these people use because Siri has been understanding me very very well. Complaints all day long.
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i'm really curious if you guys posting all these things you claim SIRI can't do are telling the truth because i just did word for word what you requested and SIRI worked perfectly for me. I said "hey SIRI read me the text" her response "you have no new text messages". In fact i've tried a few of the things listed here and all worked. I have the iPhone 6S - don't know if that makes a difference - perhaps it has a better microphone.
Nope, I'm being truthful. I speak perfectly clearly and I don't have an accent either. Siri simply cannot interpret what I say correctly even half of the time, and I've tried it with both the 4S and 6. It just doesn't work as advertised. Glad it works for you, though.
You can fix it yourself. Siri can be trained to pronounce and spell any word or phrase or name.
I wouldn't say "trained" More like tricked. It involves setting up a contact for the name and using a phonetic name in order for Siri/dictation to get the spelling right. And the post was about spelling, not pronunciation (the latter of which Siri can be trained).
Mike
1) Yes, it should try to work offline when possible.
I use Siri most of the times for simple tasks like add a reminder or call someone. It shouldn't be hard to understand a bunch of simple commands and perform the action without an internet connection. Even playing music should work offline.
2) That's what happens to me usually, I get some search results.
They ought to do something to improve noise reduction, cause most of the times Siri understands the meaning, but misspells names, for example I say "Call X" and I get "There is no Y in address book". That's quite frustrating and has nothing to do with machine learning, as it happens when I'm outdoor
Not entirely true. It's more about the order of doing it. Yes you have to set up 'Josiah' in the contacts but you can spell it normally. Once it is in the contacts, you can see Siri briefly try 'Joe Seiyu' and then she goes right to Josiah and chooses the correct contact. There is no phonetic hacks but I do wish Siri could create contacts just by dictating them. That would simplify the process but Siri is not currently allowed to create contacts - probably because you can currently access Siri on locked phones so Apple doesn't want possible security holes or people creating 'Mike Hunt' contacts on other people's phones when they're not looking.
Setting up a contact is what I meant about having to trick it. By it I meant not just Siri but the voice recognition it uses, which is the same as voice dictation. For example, my dog's name is Roxie. If I text my wife, using Siri: "Text my wife, 'Babe, I'm going to take Roxie to the park.'" It will create a text like this "Babe, I'm going to take Roxy to the park." (For the record there is reason for the spelling.)
Now I don't need to have my dog as a contact. But in order to get her name spelled correctly I had to. The same is true for other spellings where I have no need to have a contact. I would rather it simply understand by, say the third time of correcting the spelling, that that is how I want the default spelling to be.
Mike
How do you propose to correct the spelling by the third time if Siri doesn't think it's spelled wrong the first time? And then if it was corrected, how is Siri supposed to know the context every time. Sometimes it's spelled Roxy and sometimes Roxie.
It sounds more like you want the ability to type (and edit) into Siri which is what users have been asking for a few years now. I never saw the need for this because it's always going to be a niche case for specific users but Apple must see conflicts in there somewhere, otherwise they would probably implement it.
You answered your own question: Siri, or voice recognition, should very well know how I want to spell it by the third or fourth time I have corrected it. Please note most people use Siri and voice recognition interchangeably. In this case it is more a voice recognition issue. By the way, Google learns when you correct it (which in turn affects google now).
If I have repeatedly changed the spelling it ought to realize that is how I, personally, want to spell it. If it is only temporary the next 3-4 times I spell it another way it ought to change again.
Apple has already been doing almost the same thing with autocorrect for years. It could do likewise with VR.
Mike
I hate it when companies give comparison numbers without also giving a baseline.
I.e. what does "factor of two" mean in real life?
Were errors lowered from 25% to 12%, which means things are working nicely? Or did errors drop from 90% to 45%, which is still not so good?
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I'm glad that they finally fixed Siri voice recognition. When is the fixed version going to be released? Or is it still in beta?
(emphasis mine)
I love Apple products. I love my iPhone. I've had a new iPhone every 2 years since iPhone 4. I bought it at an AT&T store in Sacramento California on a trip to Yosemite I went on with my dad.
I like my iPad. It's old and I don't use it as much because my iPhone 6+ is pretty big and does a lot of what I used it for. that and iPad's are expensive, and I can't justify updating so may of my Apple products as quickly as I'd like because I don't make that kind of money.
I really like my 2010 MacBook Pro; it's been my daily driver for six years (again -- not wright). Immediately after my Apple Care lapsed I put an SSD in the superdrive bay and the machine has been, though probably not as fast as a new one, as fast as I've needed it to be.
When the Apple Watch comes down in price a bit, or gains better features for working out and/or everyday life, I'll probably get one.
I'm not lying about how trash Siri is for me. I have no reason to lie about this to a bunch of random people on the internet. That was the God's honest, like two-days prior to that post, anecdote that I had fresh in my mind because of how painful and frustrating it was.
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I wonder why kind of accents do these people use because Siri has been understanding me very very well. Complaints all day long.
I'm from the Pacific Northwest. That's the same accent as you'll find in Cupertino generally. No I'm not a transplant from another country. No I don't have a speech impediment.
Nope, she doesn't. She returns the usual, this is what I found on the web..."