Gurman: Apple Working On Revamped Siri Experience That Doesn't Require 'Hey Siri' Trigger Phrase

[MrRom92]

I wonder if Apple keeps track of how many times people tell Siri to "Go @#$@# yourself" after not working correctly.

I want to see the statistics. I bet I am a fairly high percentage of those requests - might even have a high score!

 

[svish]

Should make it better and easier to use. Hopefully Siri improves in the mean time.

 

[Hildy]

Keeping the trigger phrase, “Siri” is just phase two of trying to infuriate Canadians who say, “Sorry” every third sentence. I turned it off early and notice immediately when it is turned back on accidentally…

When Siri is actually activated on Canadian devices the only thing said remotely as much as, “Sorry” is, “Duck off Siri”. 😂

 

[SFjohn]

The watch can already do this. You don't need to say Hey Siri - just raise and speak. Software wise, this is already a solved problem. The issue is how to do this in a deliberate way with phones and HomePods without false activations.

HomePods are easy, we have voice activation set to off, so we just touch the top and ask what we want.

 

[-BigMac-]

Can’t wait for them to be forced to open up the OS so you can replace the built in assistant with a 3rd party.

That will literally never happen🤗

 

[theorist9]

Part of the reason Nuance Dragon's speech recognition is superior to Apple's is that the former allows you to train its software to your voice by speaking a series of phrases. I don't know why Apple doesn't do that.

I think the most you can do is say "Hi Siri" three times to train it to recognize your voice. But that only improves its ability to distinguish your voice from others'; it doesn't improve its ability to understand what you're saying.

 

[noSpeed]

Did you read the article? There would still be a trigger word, but it would simply be "Siri" instead of "Hey Siri"


There will still be a trigger phrase, but it'll simply be "Siri" instead of "Hey Siri".

I'm not sure if Macrumors reader just don't fully read the articles, just skim the headlines, or just have some serious reading comprehension issue, but I'm seeing more and more of these posts where the poster has obviously missed a key point in the article.

I read it, so now the phone has to listen to EVERYTHING you say, so it can parse out the word Siri.

 

[tufapshakur]

I'd pay $10 a month for a Siri+ if they really worked on improving it.

 

[kamilstudios]

Why not just scrap Siri and start over. Apple ignored Siri for like 5 years after introduction. Everyone else has moved on to something that works. Changing "Hey Siri" is not going to fix it.

Siri has improved a lot and I use it almost everyday without much problem. Ever seen recent videos on Youtube people comparing different voice assistants? Siri is among the best.

 

[kamilstudios]

Time to dump Siri. Absolutely useless and so far behind. Can’t wait for them to be forced to open up the OS so you can replace the built in assistant with a 3rd party.

You should watch recent videos on Youtube people comparing different voice assistants. Siri has improved a lot and is among the best (if not the best) and its not the worse.

 

[allenvanhellen]

So now it’ll be:

“Siri, set an alarm for 6:30 a.m.”

Siri: “Sorry, you’ll need to continue in the app.”

”Siri, set an alarm for 6:30 a.m.”

Siri: “OK, your alarm is set.”

 

[mjs916]

This!
Hey SiriMac, HeySiriWatch, HeySiriPhone, etc. would solve many problems!

I’d like to be able to say “Siri, show me this weeks weather forecast on my MacBook Air/Apple TV/etc” and it does so only on my TV.

Whichever Siri heard the request can pass the action along to the other device via Bluetooth or the cloud. This would prevent needing to use names like SiriMac or SiriPhone to distinguish them.

They already do something similar when trying to figure out which device we intended to talk to, so this could give it greater confidence in its selection since it has a list of connected devices using Siri through the associated iCloud account.

 

[EdT]

I read it, so now the phone has to listen to EVERYTHING you say, so it can parse out the word Siri.

That’s what Amazon and Google do with their voice assistants, and pretty much have done that since they were introduced. It’s the reason that they work better….they are listening and parsing what you are saying a long time before you say the key phrase that is supposed to trigger it to do something. It also means that Apple has decided to throw in the towel and do the same things that Amazon and Google do because people are absolutely not concerned whatsoever about their devices spying on them and having what they say long before the keyword is said recorded and studied anywhere near as much as they get irritated about the assistant responding incorrectly.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Siri is something I use every single day in some capacity on my Apple Watch mostly and it’s always been absolutely dreadful. Apple launched it and appear up until now to how invested very little on making it better. The likes of Google and Amazon launched voice assistants more recently and are ten times more accurate. Something as simple as saying ‘set a timer for 20 minutes’ has confused the hell out of my watch the last couple of weeks and has wrecked a couple of things I’ve cooked when timers have failed to work and I’ve not realised.

Glad investment is happening, it’s about bloody time!! It needs to be more than just changing ‘hey siri’ though!

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

I'd pay $10 a month for a Siri+ if they really worked on improving it.

No. It should be good enough considering the price we are paying for these devices. Don’t wish for yet more gouging please as I can see Apple doing that.

 

[SadBoy Pro]

No! God please no! One of the huge advantages is the fact that you DO have to say ‘Hey Siri’

It still gets activated on occasion in this scenario. God forbid what it will be like with dropping the ‘hey’ 🤦🏻‍♂️

 

[Strebor]

Leave Hey Siri.
Fix multilingual dictation. Not being able to dictate a message or mail to somebody in an other language is stupid, especially as you can dictate in an other language via keyboard language selection in messages in mail. Hey siri should understand “send a message in French to Pierre, Bonjour, comment ca va?”

 

[root42]

Our company has developed something very similar for in-car usage:

As long as this is running embedded on the device I am ok with this, but running offboard would suck in terms of a) privacy and b) data consumption.

 

[Solomani]

Meanwhile, Siri's rival is in a hot mess....



Lawsuit Alleging Amazon's Alexa Is Spying On You Moves Forward


Amazon (AMZN) lost a round in a court when a federal judge ordered the internet retail giant to produce millions of documents in a legal battle over the marketing of its Alexa-enabled devices and their recording of users’ conversations.

In his ruling, District Judge Robert S. Lasnik of the US District Court for the Western District of Washington said that "these devices are ubiquitous in our society, and plaintiffs are seeking astronomical damages commensurate with the number of people who have been recorded over the years," Bloomberg Law reported on Nov. 1.

“Plaintiffs’ queries may not be perfect, but they represent a good faith effort to generate search term strings that will capture relevant documents," Lasnik said.

 

[Jdhommert]

Apple has to know how awful Siri is. It was the worst digital assistant since the day they announced it and its never gotten any better. I'm not sure how Apple can be this bad at anything.

Surely they'll fix Siri along with this, right?


RIGHT?

 

[hj8ag]

“Hey Siri, play The Viewing Suite by Daniel Lopatin”

“I’m sorry, I could not find The Viewing Suite by Daniel Lopatin in your Apple Music library”

*Manually airplays song from phone*

“Hey Siri, what song is this?”

“This is The Viewing Suite by Daniel Lopatin”

(Replace that song for many others same issue)

 

[noraa]

I read it, so now the phone has to listen to EVERYTHING you say, so it can parse out the word Siri.

There's already a subprocess on the phone listening for "Hey Siri" at all times. This is no different. I believe there is actually a separate micro controller on the A series SOC that is dedicated to listening for "Hey Siri." The only aspect of the phone that is listening at all times is this micro controller. The phone only starts to truly listen to what you are saying once the trigger phrase is heard by the subprocess (being controlled by it's own dedicated micro controller) which then singles to the rest of the OS to start listening to everything you are saying.

Changing the trigger phrase from "Hey Siri" to "Siri" won't change any of this.

 

[Tenkaykev]

Makes sense. In the US we might say “batty” for the same. In contrast, “potty” means something associated with the toilet. 😳

“Cracked Pot “ crackpot, potty…

 

[Akrapovic]

HomePods are easy, we have voice activation set to off, so we just touch the top and ask what we want.

Fair! I didn't think of this as my HomePod mini has a wee dedicated shelf in my office out of reach of touch.

 

[Ahmamies]

I have Google Mini in the kitchen. I use it for playing Apple Music, Google Podcasts (for some reason Apple Podcast cannot be linked unlike Apple Music) and sometimes asking stuff from the assistant.

Just today I asked both Google Assistant and Siri “when is the next full moon?”. Google told me that it is tomorrow, Siri told me the classic “here’s what I found from the web”.

Siri works fine for me for setting reminders and sending messages (from Apple Watch).