iOS 15 to Limit Siri Functionality With Third-Party Apps

[SFjohn]

Siri voice activation is turned off on all my HomePods (4). If I want to give my HomePods a command, like setting volume or a timer I touch the top to activate it. Same for almost all my Apple Devices. I’ve never ordered an Uber of Lyft using Siri, so no change for me going forward.

 

[ShaneIsHere]

Anyone else remember when Apple announced they were “opening up Siri”

Yep, but let's get real. SiriKit has never opened up, and never became useful for development, especially when you compare Siri to the competition. Siri has a major problem when compared to both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. Those two allow server side apps to be developed, and run on any hardware, including cars, watches, toasters, smart displays, SBCs, phones including iOS devices, and the list keeps going, and going. Apples Siri is only on Apples Macs, iPads, iPhones, Apple watches, Apple TV, HomePods, and the iPod Touch devices. That list of hardware is severely limited when compare to the other voice assistants. What really hindered Siri was SiriKit was fragmented on Apples own platforms. If you made a SiriKit iPhone app, then you had to add in support for Apples watches as well. With the other voice assistants you write your voice app once, and it works on Android, Android Wear, Android Auto, (iPhones, iPads with one of the other voice assistants installed), Macs, smart displays, smart speakers, and lots of other hardware.

Siri Shortcuts is a kludge, and not really a development platform.

What Apple needs to do in order to compete, is they need to make Siri a server side product. Even though Siri for the most part has always been a server side product, because users requests are always sent to Apples Siri servers to get processed. This is where Apple needs to make a back end for Siri apps. That way those apps are not tied to any hardware, just like the other voice assistants.

 

[ShaneIsHere]

This is strange. Why would Apple deliberately want to limit Siri's functionality in this way? Unless they've decided that SiriKit is too limiting and there's a better, deeper integration planned in future updates to Siri. But still, why not just deprecate SiriKit interactions rather than blocking them completely?

On the other hand, perhaps this is just a clean up of intents that Apple's metrics showed weren't being widely used anyway. Who's ever used Siri to book an Uber?

SiriKit has been limited from day one. It's why Apple released that kludge called Siri Shortcuts. Apple needs to add development for Siri on the server side, just like the other voice assistants (Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa). Otherwise Siri will always be a second class citizen.

 

[jk1221]

You could argue that the more “intelligent” assistants are smarter because they’re always watching or listening.

That's a bit of a fallacy. Apple has plenty of voice data, they just process it in a different way.

That is the huge difference between Siri and the rest. The others have less privacy but a far better experience because it knows you and your tendencies. Apple is very general anonymized data.

Obviously a very very baseline explanation but it is the processing not that they are "listening to you all the time." It's not the volume of data (to an extent, yes but all of the major players have enough data) but how you use it.

 

[Virgilisleading]

Siri is soooo bad. The problem is it will so often give you a visual response to an auditory question. If you have the homepod mini you just realize how limited it is too google. The google assistant is incredible but creepy. I wish so badly that apple made siri useful.

 

[RoundaboutRider]

So Apple, which probably knows Siri is as dumb as virtual assistants get, having lost their early lead in the space decides to take further steps backwards.

It’s like Apple management are now living in their own reality distortion field.

To me Apple used to make their products the best in overall functionality, but now it’s just ‘least worst but with some serious compromises’.

 

[boswald]

That's a bit of a fallacy. Apple has plenty of voice data, they just process it in a different way.

That is the huge difference between Siri and the rest. The others have less privacy but a far better experience because it knows you and your tendencies. Apple is very general anonymized data.

Obviously a very very baseline explanation but it is the processing not that they are "listening to you all the time." It's not the volume of data (to an extent, yes but all of the major players have enough data) but how you use it.

Good point. Hadn’t thought of that.

 

[RedRage]

More of that walled garden lol

 

[name99]

This is strange. Why would Apple deliberately want to limit Siri's functionality in this way? Unless they've decided that SiriKit is too limiting and there's a better, deeper integration planned in future updates to Siri. But still, why not just deprecate SiriKit interactions rather than blocking them completely?

On the other hand, perhaps this is just a clean up of intents that Apple's metrics showed weren't being widely used anyway. Who's ever used Siri to book an Uber?

Presumably the same people who used Siri to buy soup 🤣

https://twitter.com/x/status/1276267501572235266

 

[iBreatheApple]

I'll bet 99% of this forum crying foul about Apple's decision don't even use Siri for most 3rd party apps. I'd bet they are barely using Siri past reminders, timers and playing music. People just want to complain simply because it's Apple. So funny how people here are complaining about Apple's decision but then state that they don't use Siri because it sucks. The irony. SMH.

Why do people like this ^ assume they know how and when other people use their devices when they have no clue? If we’re complaining about it, we probably have complaints.

 

[Chrjy]

If the electronics are already in the Home app than you should have native Siri access to them. Siri is very reliable, in my experience, controlling all of my lights, locks, A/C, and garage door. If you are looking to operate many lights with one command, you need to set up some zones in the Home app, such as upstairs, downstairs, outside, etc. or you can create scenes. Then just use the zone or scene name with Siri. No need for Siri Shortcuts.

I know this is more of a Siri related thread but I do have zones set up for each room of the house and I'm using Hue lights.

My issue is more with the fact that I don't necessarily want to use my voice in the middle of the night to turn off certain zones but would rather tap a button and shortcuts is not great for that. Don't get me wrong it does work sometimes but it can be hit and miss.

To be honest, I'm probably banging on about this in the wrong thread! 😅

As a dev myself I'm also aware of the many limitations of software so appreciate what Apple has tried to do with shortcuts but it just isn't working very well. I see shortcuts like a middleman who is incredibly annoying but you kind of need him to get the deal done!

 

[leman]

This is a very strange move that is directly at odds with Apples recent efforts to make the APIs and extensibility more accessible. It is indeed possible that they want this functionality to move to shortcuts instead, but this is a very weird way to communicate and organise this change.

 

[MacBH928]

The only reason people use Siri because its baked in iOS and people think its more private than Google and Amazon. Even Brave Search that is still in beta gives better results.

Looks like computer AI is just not Tim Cook's thing, either that or for AI to work it needs a lot of privacy breaching and data hoarding because Amazon and Google seem not to have an issue with that.

 

[Flight Plan]

STILL "has limited functionality"

Always had and still "has limited functionality"

 

[Marshall73]

If they want shortcuts to be pushed out then they should detail this and publish it as a guide for developers. Then developers can publish a set of shortcuts they can roll out with their APP. Seems like a simple way to rollout shortcuts, get the APP developers to help push adoption.

 

[ds2000]

Siri is the reason we have Alexa devices in the house. I'd love to go to homekit but until Siri catches up, that'll never happen.

#idontcareaboutyourlisteningandsecuritycomments

 

[Muzzakus]

The only reason people use Siri because its baked in iOS and people think its more private than Google and Amazon. Even Brave Search that is still in beta gives better results.

Looks like computer AI is just not Tim Cook's thing, either that or for AI to work it needs a lot of privacy breaching and data hoarding because Amazon and Google seem not to have an issue with that.

A basic fact question should not be returning a list of web search results. such things do not need to rely on any private information being generic in nature. it’s just pathetic really, 0 investment.

 

[vgmrm]

A more simple (and accurate) headline would be “Siri has limited functionality”.

But does Siri have any functionality?

 

[tkaravou]

This is strange. Why would Apple deliberately want to limit Siri's functionality in this way? Unless they've decided that SiriKit is too limiting and there's a better, deeper integration planned in future updates to Siri. But still, why not just deprecate SiriKit interactions rather than blocking them completely?

On the other hand, perhaps this is just a clean up of intents that Apple's metrics showed weren't being widely used anyway. Who's ever used Siri to book an Uber?

Eddy Cue

 

[tkaravou]

But does Siri have any functionality?

I'm sorry, I can't get the answer to that on HomePod

 

[jk1221]

Why do people like this ^ assume they know how and when other people use their devices when they have no clue? If we’re complaining about it, we probably have complaints.

To some, you're not allowed to have any independent opinion counter to Apple's. Didn't you already know that?

 

[EdT]

Siri is good for two thing, setting the clock or checking the weather. Other than that it’s completely useless. For me anyway, I asked her to play The Rolling Stones and she played Romancing the Stone.

That may have been an editorial decision rather than a misunderstanding of what you said.

 

[buckwheet]

Siri was a research project which was productized - but that didn't mean that team had a foolproof plan to make Siri perfect over a decade period. The Siri approach itself was somewhat limited at launch - it was more a novel combination of two decades-old speech recognition technology than brand new green-field research.

Apple tends to buy small companies with a delivery-focused mindset, e.g. "your voice assistant stuff is neat, how would you feel about coming to work with us and have something ship in the OS to hundreds of millions of people?"

The delivery-focused mindset and emphasis on secrecy has reduced their field of AI experts, which typically involve a lot of people doing open research.

Generally, I agree—Apple isn't a primary research kind of company—but I don't totally agree with your last point. I mean, yes, serious researchers do tend to work in larger groups, on longer-term research projects, and they tend to want to publish, so a "closed" corporate environment isn't super attractive. But I'd imagine an Apple salary next to an academic salary could be somewhat tempting...

Also, they obviously still have access to all the open research, which their internal R&D folks can leverage, discuss, extend, and so on. And occasionally—veeeery occasionally—they even publish something. Ha! But yeah, you're right about the divide between these two worlds.

 

[Nuno Lopes]

Tim woke up … “How can we make Siri better?” … ”I know, limit its use to our users and later charge to make it better”.

 

[SigEp265]

Siri is good for two thing, setting the clock or checking the weather. Other than that it’s completely useless. For me anyway, I asked her to play The Rolling Stones and she played Romancing the Stone.

I love using Siri on my homepod to control my Apple TV