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

[orbital~debris]

Still think it would be cool to get up to speed with how Starfleet do this: “Computer…”

 

[slplss]

Disconnections aside, Siri is always remind me how bad my accent and/or her recognition is. Hey Siri, close the blinds: “There’s no such thang in your home”. So I have repeat it exactly the same way to do its thing.

 

[slplss]

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

I always apologise right away, but I doubt it hears it. Using British male 2 btw, it’s a love-hate bromanship.

 

[MTShipp]

I may not be an eloquent speaker, but I would be happy if Siri would ignore me by not responding nearly every time I speak to my dog, “Gracy”.

 

[Powerbooky]

I have a family that primarily uses iPhones and iPads. It’s not uncommon for there to be several iPhones and iPads in the kitchen and family room area during the hour leading up to dinner while we cook. We also have two paired OG HomePods that serve this area. It’s become laughable how useless Siri is when we want to listen to music, change the volume, add something to the shopping list, etc. And it keeps getting worse over time. It would at least be bearable if we saw improvement. We will ask SirI to play music and instead of music starting on the HomePods, an iPad starts playing. We will get music going on the HomePods and then ask Siri to change the volume and one of the iPads will blurt out “Media will play softer from now on” but the volume on the HomePods is unchanged. We will ask again, and a different iPad will respond. I have tried turning off Siri on the iPads but that causes Shortcuts that I have created to not work when spoken to the HomePods. It’s as if Apple engineers have created this huge tangled mess that even they can’t figure out. It’s almost comical, but I’m not laughing Apple. The only FEMALE in the ENTIRE house of 3 people will ask Siri to do something and Siri constantly asks her “Who’s speaking?” Apple, please get your act together. And I am totally open to suggestions to tame this beast. I’m about to throw kitchen knives at Siri when I cook!

My experience is a bit different. On all iPhones and iPad in the house, "Hey Siri" is turned off but the few short cuts I created work normally. That is, on OS 15 they were pretty slow and on OS 16 they run faster. A few had some unclear errors after upgrading to OS 16, saying that input values are wrong. But the only thing I had to do is reprogram the exact same command again, including the same values to make it work again.

All HomePod's except one are set to British English (we're multilingual at home) and that setting works best for us. Even when commands are pronounced very soft and muffled, it often responds correctly. But on other languages, like Dutch and German, it has trouble understanding. Still music titles, which are often English, often are understood incorrect. Although one of our toddlers seems to get the right results more often than I do in Dutch.

But the most important thing Siri should be better at, is accepting multiple commands in one sentence. And being better with the context of the (last) command; for example when you've just started to play some music that you immediately can say "stop!", "Wrong, try again" or "louder". Same for lights. And when the doorbell rings, a "who's there?" should be enough to hear if Siri has recognised the person on the door camera. Or when asking "What's the temperature outside" that it first tries to read any sensor that is outside the house before reverting to WeatherChannel data (which is usually wrong).

 

[OS X Dude]

I'd just like Siri to be able to interact with more third-party services, but not at the total expense of user privacy. Apple must surely be able to come up with a middle-ground protocol/API for this?

Also, I really wish all music playback commands were processed on-device. The amount of times I ask Siri to play something or shuffle my songs in an area of no mobile signal is maddening, and all you get is "Something went wrong". I have wireless CarPlay so it's not too bad, but it'd be a marked improvement all the same.

 

[Strebor]

“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)

I have the same issue with some contacts.

Me: "Hey Siri call Alexander Bell" (yes, in my contacts).

Siri: "I'm sorry, there is no Alexander Bell in your contacts"

And then when I receive a call:

Siri: "Incoming call from Alexander Bell"


An other one I had after the update to iOS 16 (has been fixed in iOS 16.1)

Me: "Hey Siri open home front door"

Siri on my watch: "Do you mean Open the front door?"

Me: "yes"

Siri: "I'm sorry, I don't understand"

Same question to iPhone:

Siri "OK, opening home front door"

 

[Whathappened]

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.

Hell no, I want my phone to have an OS as closed as possible. That’s the main reason I buy iOS phones.

 

[Piggie]

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.

LOL some people are so paranoid.
Of course, I'm 100% sure companies like Google/Amazon and Chinese camera makers are recording and storing the video and audio feeds from billions of devices all around the world 24 hours a day and looking through it all to find secrets about what you are doing.... LOL....

Just think how unrealistic a scenario that actually would be in reality.

 

[dannys1]

I usually tell it to turn off the fan in X minutes and it usually works. Yesterday was a one off as far as that one is concerned - but there are always sort of wacky inconsistencies with ANYTHING I ever ask it to do. Never know what you’ll get next.

Actually I seem to remember this featuring coming - doesn't it create an automation every time you ask though - so when you go to shortcuts you've got LOADS of automations that you need to delete?

 

[kirky29]

Or just let us select whichever Assistant we want.

 

[philstubbington]

Apple is working on an updated Siri experience that moves away from the trigger phrase "Hey Siri" currently required to invoke the digital voice assistant hands-free, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.

In his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman says that Apple is working on a way for Siri to be able to understand phrases and commands without the need to use the "Hey Siri" trigger phrase but instead simply saying "Siri." Gurman says the change is expected to roll out sometime next year or in 2024.
Gurman also reports today that Apple is working to further integrate Siri into third-party services and apps to provide more context and assistance to users.

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

Great, so it’ll trigger every time I say “sorry”.

It does that already!

 

[SenorWhyMe]

still not bilingual; seriously on their suggestions i pleaded the idea for siri to be able to read out different language text based on the language setting the user uses on ios keyboard but no they don’t do that simple thing just a stupid announcement “ this text is spanish do you still want to read it out” then it reads it out in english accent spanish words

 

[iGeek2014]

“Hey Siri, what time is my alarm set for?”
“You don’t currently have an alarm set up.”

Checks Home app. Alarm is set up and toggled on 🙄.

Or she’ll say “you have one alarms” at other times. Surely it should be alarm if I only have one set up and enabled?

 

[philcourage]

Should be relatively easy, especially since on Apple Watch you don't even need a wake word for it!

Don't get me started on that. I must sound like an idiot trying to get the watch to hear while bikeing to work and yelling "hey siri! HEY! HEY SIRI!". I have to stop the bike, press the digital crown, invoke the thing and then tell it what I want to do. Then traffic runs me over. Great experience!

 

[Pitogyro]

The problem is not “hey”. It’s the other word.

 

[star-affinity]

Alexa is a much more common name....

Not where I'm from. Do you say ”hey Alexa” to trigger Alexa?
Families with people named both Alexa and Siri then… oh, my.

 

[philcourage]

I still don't understand why I can't choose another own name for Siri. If you have a Sarah in the house, Siri becomes...really, really challenging. I imagine the same would be for Alexa. I would also love to differentiate by device or device type (call my HomePods something different than my iOS devices)

If I can teach a dog what his name is, why can't I do the same for devices that have more processing power than 1960's NASA mission command?

Yes, I would like Margaret.

- Margaret, add tomatoes to the Groceries list.
- You do not have a Tomatoes list. You want me to create it?
- I hate you, Margaret.

 

[applesed]

Siri should detect when you’re having trouble getting the actor from that thing. In other breaking news from Apple, Siri will now trigger when you say “yo”, while simultaneously asking dairy producer “yo baby” to stay out of its lane.

 

[jonnysods]

I use Siri to set reminders and set timers, and man even Siri gets those wrong sometimes.

 

[ifxf]

never use it since it is so slow, Apple needs to improve its performance.

 

[tubular]

In all seriousness, the main issue I have with Siri is playing music titles. Usually have to reword it a couple different ways to find the exact track I am looking for, especially if it’s one I don’t have.

I'll spare the rant, but oh boooy now try doing it with classical.

 

[tubular]

You stole that idea from me.

8 bucks please!

"Eight bucks" instead of "hey Siri" works for me. "Eight bucks, turn off the lights."

 

[Jason2000]

It truly is pathetic. It’s been over 10 years and feels like it’s only gotten worse

I disagree. It does not feel like it's only gotten worse. It has gotten worse. We use Siri quite often during our day and it's getting more and more frustrating to do so. They fired the guy over maps and look at maps now. Its wonderful. Maybe time to do the same with the lead Siri person.

 

[Jason2000]

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.

No it's not a solved problem. The Watch uses motion to activate Siri. Completely different that what this article is talking about Apple doing.