Everything New With Siri and Dictation in iOS 16

[CarAnalogy]

Honest question, who uses Siri daily for more than setting a timer, alarm, or asking the temperature?

I actually use it constantly on the watch. Sometimes it nails it. The biggest problem is when it takes totally wild-ass guesses at what should be understandable phrases.

But it’s kind of like these food delivery services. Sometimes it goes well and you’re like “wow, this really can work!” but many times it’s disappointing and sometimes it’s just a complete disaster.

After all these years it should be a higher bar than Doordash but it’s not really.

 

[MakeAppleAwesomeAgain]

Siri is awful. You know it’s bad when Rene Ritchie trashes it. I expected Siri to be so much better by now but it’s as if Siri has stood still all these years since Steve Jobs introduced it.

Steve didn’t introduce it 😢

 

[Admiral Fart]

If Dictation is not enabled, there is no icon in the text box.

Thank God. Now take the stupid dictation icon out of the search bar in Safari. I can't count the number of times I hit it accidentally. No, I f***ing don't want to enable dictation.

 

[211]

Siri is better than it was before, but the improvements have taken way too long. It appears the competition is way better, which is embarrassing as Apple led the way with this first. I use it for basic functions because Siri cannot understand anything else. Even things Siri should be able to do due to Apple’s existing services is a complete disaster. Asking it to play something that has the same (or similar name) just doesn’t work. I want it to play a movie, it plays a song instead- sometimes with a title not remotely similar to the movie title I requested. It’s even more annoying when I can see Siri understood my request because of the transcript, but chooses to do something else completely

 

[JDHiro]

I've had some really weird interactions with the new Siri so far. The most odd are when she asks you something, and then does the wrong thing with your input.

Me: "Hey Siri, get directions to 1234 Marine View Dr."
Siri: "Found directions for 1234 Marine View Dr, do you want to start navigation?"
Me: "Yes".
Siri: "Yes is the name of a progressive rock band founded in 1968."

WTAF. This one just happened to me today.

I've also found that she ignores cities when asking for directions, and tries to navigate me to something super far away.

The good news is that she pronounces "Dr" in addresses as "drive" now and not "doctor", which was super annoying...

 

[goobot]

Siri is awful. You know it’s bad when Rene Ritchie trashes it. I expected Siri to be so much better by now but it’s as if Siri has stood still all these years since Steve Jobs introduced it.

Steve Jobs died the day before it was announced

 

[Apple_Robert]

I like the new Siri dictation features period I wish that we had had them sooner but comma better late than never period

 

[ipedro]

It would be great to string commands together.

Hey Siri, turn off the lights in the bedroom, set the alarm to 8am and remind me in the morning to dry the laundry.

I get that language is complex but this isn't even that difficult as you're just stringing multiple sentences together that individiually could be interepreted as commands, only omitting the prompt word Hey Siri.

I use Siri a lot and contrary to the popular thing here to hate on Siri, it works pretty darn well throughout my day as I walk around my home/office calling out commands. But having to preface each command with Hey Siri, even though I just asked something and she's currently listening, really bogs things down.

 

[london_apple]

I find it interesting that so many people don’t get along well with Siri. It’s always worked more than fine for me! 🤷🏽‍♂️ not always perfect, but never so unbearable as y’all make it seem

 

[citysnaps]

I find it interesting that so many people don’t get along well with Siri. It’s always worked more than fine for me! 🤷🏽‍♂️ not always perfect, but never so unbearable as y’all make it seem

Same here. I have no problems with Siri.

 

[JGIGS]

If I didn’t always just keep my phone on silent/vibrate, I’m trying to decide if this would be a great feature or get annoying really fast. Any beta testers try it yet?

”There's also an option to "Announce Notifications on Speaker" to have ‌Siri‌ speak notifications aloud”

 

[JGIGS]

I find it interesting that so many people don’t get along well with Siri. It’s always worked more than fine for me! 🤷🏽‍♂️ not always perfect, but never so unbearable as y’all make it seem

It’s not as bad as people say it is but really hard to also say it‘s good? I think part of the negativity also stems from it feeling like Siri should have gotten a lot better and more quickly than it has though.

 

[stefanski]

I've used Siri at home and on my phone and each new version just seems to make it worse for a while before it gets better.

I understand that Apple is trying to keep things private despite the odd setback however I believe there is such a thing as too much shielding. It makes Siri pretty much useless for anything more exiting that the weather forecast and turning on some lights. Sure, Siri can send a text to my wife or other defined people but only if I'm lucky. Otherwise she may refuse to know who my wife is even though she knew yesterday and I'm not changing wife's that frequently.

Any interaction has to be step by step unless you create a scene which then may or may not work. "hey Siri turn on the kitchen light and set it to 50%" results in a shameful admission that Siri can't do more than 1 command at once. It's 2022. Even the average male is now perfectly capable of following 2 commands at once provided they are kept simple.

Somewhere along the way Apple forgot what they wanted to achieve:

 

[Dark_Omen]

Probably nobody, that’s really all she can do after 10 years. Easily one of Apple’s greatest failures.

Apple really need to start from scratch with a new system.

 

[GregoriusM]

It’s even more annoying when I can see Siri understood my request because of the transcript, but chooses to do something else completely.

This.

 

[Naraxus]

Siri is awful. You know it’s bad when Rene Ritchie trashes it. I expected Siri to be so much better by now but it’s as if Siri has stood still all these years since Steve Jobs introduced it.

Siri has stood completely still since Apple bought it out. It's just garbage

 

[bobtem]

“Simpler Shortcuts” ?

Well it ain’t a shortcut if it’s not simple..

 

[Ashbash75]

Love Siri and timers.

This happens pretty much every day.

Kitchen homepod timer going off.
me: "Hey siri, stop the kitchen timer"
living room hp: "You mean the kitchen?"
me: "YES!!!!!"


me: "Hey siri, how long has the kitchen timer got left?"
living room hp: "There are no timers set".
me: "Hey siri, how long has the kitchen timer got left?"
kitchen hp: "2 minutes and 34 seconds".

 

[mjs916]

She is even worse now. She won't recognize the message now if I say, "Hey Siri, message <soandso> <message>" I will rattle the whole thing off, and she will ask me what I want to message <soandso> I already told you!!

I experienced this once while driving recently but it seems to work still are you referring to the iOS 16 beta or current OS?

 

[mjs916]

Steve didn’t introduce it 😢

😔

 

[mjs916]

I've had some really weird interactions with the new Siri so far. The most odd are when she asks you something, and then does the wrong thing with your input.

Me: "Hey Siri, get directions to 1234 Marine View Dr."
Siri: "Found directions for 1234 Marine View Dr, do you want to start navigation?"
Me: "Yes".
Siri: "Yes is the name of a progressive rock band founded in 1968."

WTAF. This one just happened to me today.

I've also found that she ignores cities when asking for directions, and tries to navigate me to something super far away.

The good news is that she pronounces "Dr" in addresses as "drive" now and not "doctor", which was super annoying...

I got navigated to some address in Boston recently when I was trying to find the location in Sacramento. I couldn’t believe it.

 

[George Dawes]

Basing an os around something so fundamentally flawed as Siri is just asking for trouble

 

[thecybernerd]

Is the Siri voice model new in iOS 16 or does it just have the features listed above?

 

[George Dawes]

Honest question, who uses Siri daily for more than setting a timer, alarm, or asking the temperature?

It seems the only time it’s responsive and accurate is re the weather , the time , tbh that’s about it

I’ve given up on it , it’s so utterly useless I’ve turned it off everything now apart from one HomePod mini

Plus it’s invasive , interrupting conversations with ‘I don’t agree about that’

Very big brother …..a very very stupid one who can’t respond to even basic queries without replying I don’t understand etc ..doh !

 

[Nozuka]

Only used Siri with Carplay, but there i was definitely able to use Emojis while answering a text. So i'm not sure this is really new.