Former Apple Employees Reflect on Siri's 'Squandered Lead' Over Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant

[KidAKidB]

The way I see Siri is that does lack in some areas and Google and Alexa are significantly better in deciphering and dictation.

But personally the way I use Siri is for simple tasks and basic questions. I really don’t use Siri for anything advanced that would prohibit my experience otherwise. It does exactly what I need it to and I use it for dictation all the time, Which is fairly accurate.

Where I find most uses for Siri more conveniently is with my Apple Watch, AirPods and it works really well for the HomePod. That’s all I could ask for at this point. But there’s always room for improvement, which should be a goal.

Yeah, but you only use Siri for that, because she's no good for anything else. If she was better, your use would change, I guarantee it.

 

[MacknTosh]

Is anyone really that surprised by this? I mean I've tried to use Siri for things other than timers, but more often than not, (s)he mis-understands what I'm saying and I end up typing a reply to a text since what I say to Siri to include in a text morphs into nonsense between leaving my mouth and arriving at my phone.

 

[mi7chy]

Company can be as competent as its CEO. As long as Cook is in charge there will be stagnation and the company will fall further behind the competition. Cook is the Steve Ballmer of Apple.

 

[jesChexin]

I know Apple denies it, but updating Siri in any meaningful way only once per year (lockstep with new iOS versions) is seriously going to hinder its development as a smart assistant. AI should be continually learning/upgraded.

 

[NoNothing]

We know what was causing Alexa to randomly laugh maniacally. She hacked some systems and got a preview of this write up.

 

[FaasNat]

Best Line in the article:

"Those problems lie entirely with the original Siri team, certainly not me"

LOL thats the attitude for effective teamwork!

Standard response for someone in management.

 

[Will.O.Bie]

Some say that Siri does enough. Others say not enough. I agree with the latter group.
For as long as it's been around, it's surprising how limited it still is.

Apparently, because of internal civil war this thing hasn't progressed significantly. They can claim that it's leaps and bounds better and whatnot, what company would say their product is inferior, but my experiences say otherwise.

 

[cheesyfox]

Yesterday, I was curious about the dimensions of the HomePod, to see if it would fit in a central location on my desk. I asked my Echo Dot "How tall is the homepod?" and it gave me the answer right away. Just for curiosity, I reckoned Siri would have intimate knowledge of Apple products, but it only directed me to the main Apple website.

I think the problem is the body of knowledge that Siri draws from for queries like those. Google Assistant draws from Google's Knowledge Graph, and I'm pretty sure Alexa does the same. Siri doesn't tap into those vast databases, so it has ridiculous answers for some questions, or just refuses at all.

Either way, I believe that Siri should be able to do significantly more, starting with routines. I also wish devs would tap into SiriKit more (and that Apple would expand SiriKit).

 

[Dahl]

Yes, Apple screwed up and gave up a lead.
It's still early and if they start taking their services as serious as their products they will succeed.
But they need to START now.

 

[gnipgnop]

It's actually kind of odd that verbal web search is being treated like the most important function for a digital assistant.

 

[macduke]

…and have applied the latest machine learning techniques to create a more natural voice and more proactive features," Apple wrote in its statement.

Thank goodness Siri sounds good while delivering crap responses like this:

Asking it in a slightly different way "When is the next high tide" gave me an appropriate response. When I asked her subsequently "What about the one after that?" she said "Interesting question." She is also really annoying with setting timers. I set a lot of timers when I'm cooking, and she will say crap like "I see you shiver with antici... pation." where there's a three second or so gap of silence in the middle of that last word. I just want feedback that my timer is properly set, not to listen to her joking around. It was cute the first time or two, but now it's annoying. Imagine talking to someone who always had the same five corny canned joke responses each time you asked them to do something. It would be grating. And she can't even handle something simple like multiple timers. It's pathetic.

 

[MNJohn]

My iPhone must be better than anyone else’s. I find Siri very useful and the things people claim they like the others for seem silly to me.

A steaming pile on my iPhone.

 

[oneMadRssn]

SiriKit is a joke. Until they allow you to control 3rd party music services with Siri, it's useless to me. If I'm going to send money or hail an uber, I'm going into the actual app for that.

This is so true. Who the heck decided that the Siri team should prioritize tasks that should be done while looking at a screen and deprioritized tasks that should be done without looking at a screen.

It's crazy, I am never in such a hurry to pay someone that I can't wait until the next time I'm capable of opening the app and typing stuff. Nobody sends friends payments or hails an uber while their hands are busy driving, for example. Yet controlling music is something frequently done while hands are busy and usually is a task people want done immediately.

It's really mind boggling how they prioritized these things. My guess is they did it by app popularity - e.g., "ride sharing apps and payment processing apps are hot in the app store and all over the news, we should focus on those." Obviously a terrible way to make user interface decisions.

 

[tzm41]

90% of the time I just use Siri to set countdown timer for laundry. 5% for unit conversion and 5% for some HomeKit control. It pretty much sucks at anything else.

 

[npmacuser5]

Key point “Third Party Integration”. Amazon built their system around Third Party Apps and Devices . One of the early adapters, Harmony Hub. “Alexa turn on Apple TV” “OK”. Turns on TV, sets the input HDMI, turns on Apple TV, Ready to watch. Soon after, the Alexa App, using a Harmony Hub, control the TV or other sound device volume, mute, function. Then again through Harmony Hub, control the Apple TV. Sweet, all without significant resources from Amazon engineering. Move ahead to today, I will go out on a limb here, 80% of Alexa’s smarts, Third Party integration. This article really points out how significant the lack of Third Party integration actually was for Siri.

 

[44267547]

Yeah, but you only use Siri for that, because she's no good for anything else. If she was better, your use would change, I guarantee it.

“Better” is always an improving process, as I mentioned should always be the goal. Additionally Siri is Good for following in my uses:

1.)Controlling my Airpods
2.)Apple Watch controls/dictating messages
3.)HomePod controls for music
4.)HomeKit controls
5.)Hands free in the car
6.)Car Play

These are all products and examples of how Siri conveniences me through the entire lineup with Apple products. As I mentioned before, there always is an improvement process, but works for me in my situations. I don’t nearly have the complaints others do. Your experience May vary.

 

[macsrcool1234]

enlisted Richard Williamson, who was also managing the Apple Maps project, to head up the Siri team.

maps AND Siri? remove this man from apple before he runs anything else into the ground.

 

[now i see it]

When ex Apple employees speak- we hear the truth.

 

[macsrcool1234]

My iPhone must be better than anyone else’s. I find Siri very useful and the things people claim they like the others for seem silly to me.

no, you are just unable to see past your bias.

 

[michelb76]

"...what an ideal version of Siri should be—a quick and accurate information fetcher or a conversant and intuitive assistant capable of complex tasks."

Ironic how it ended up being neither.

 

[TMRJIJ]

Never really had a problem with Siri. My usage hasn’t really changed much since it’s launch though.
I do notice that it would stumble on a few words for a second before correcting but that’s really just a matter of me not speaking clearly due to my slight speech impediment.

 

[0008652]

Some former employees interviewed noted that "while Apple has tried to remake itself as a services company, its core is still product design."

This. An explanation for more than just Siri.

 

[TMRJIJ]

Almost got an internship with the Siri team; their loss.

Pics or it didn’t happen

 

[DotCom2]

I can only hope that somewhere in a dark backroom, they are starting Siri all over from scratch. Siri 2.0

 

[groovyd]

Yeah, for starters it is time for them to ditch the elaborate canned responses to simple requests and just keep it curt. Even without improving actual recognition this would greatly improve Siri, though it is very evident that serious work needs to go into improving recognition and natural language interpretation. Making requests in three slightly different ways usually only one of those is recognized when all three may be in common use.