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Microsoft Pits Cortana Against Siri in New Ad Showcasing Contextual Reminders, Traffic Alerts
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Oh man, Siri definitely needs to improve. I've used Cortana before and it's actually pretty cool. Uh oh, I just gave Microsoft a positive comment. The Apple faithful will disown me for sure this time.
Well, Jen Taylor does possess that perky vocal quality. Kudos to Microsoft for keeping Apple on its toes. Competition is what keeps the tech giants from getting complacent.
Idk why, but I get the feeling Apple could not care less.
Are you trolling? I asked that and got, "You have three alarms set. The next one is for 8:20am (it's not on though)"
This is an API limitation. Weather services typically charge for past-weather access, so this is probably a licensing deal with The Weather Channel. Certainly Apple could pay for this, but how many people need to know the weather yesterday or last month? While useful, it's way down on my list of priorities.
Again, are you just trolling? I just asked that question and Siri gave me a list of emails since last Sunday. I also asked Siri "do I have any new mail" and she correctly answered no.
Siri has also gotten better integrated with iOS apps in iOS 8. I can now command, "Set an appointment with Mike's Repair Shop tomorrow at 11am" and it will create a calendar item and now properly understand that you mean Mike's Repair Shop in your contact list. Bizarrely, it won't attach the contact location to the event, so that needs fixing.
Siri has also gotten slightly better at contextual conversions. For instance:
"Siri, what is the rating for St. Vincent?"
--> returns rating
"Where is it playing?"
--> Here's St Vincent playing today a bit far from you...
Used to, Siri wouldn't understand that second question. Each question was independent. But now it understands by "it" you mean the movie referenced in the previous question. This is one of the biggest leaps in terms of Siri starting to become a personal assistant instead of a fact book.
I do agree with you that the pace and breadth of progress is slow, but your particular examples are not valid.
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I have the jailbreak tweak on my iPhone that removes the tethered requirement. It's not all that great of a benefit, because Siri just interrupts you more thinking you're saying "Hey Siri" when you are in fact not saying Hey Siri. Apple needs to allow customization for the Hot Voice Key 'Hey Siri' so it can be something extremely unique. I was at a conference, and the host said "Hey Siri" really loud into the microphone and everyone's iPhone of those plugged in with iOS 8 fired up Siri.
yeah i suppose. I should start trying it. I think what also doesn't help is i have rubbish wifi/3g/4g where i live so if its anything i ask where it needs to look up something it takes longer than me just looking myself.
^^
I have the same experience as petsounds. I asked Siri if I had any new email and it returned a list of all my unread emails. I asked when my next alarm was snd Siri responded that I have 3 alarms with the next one being Monday morning at 5am.
I have the same experience as petsounds. I asked Siri if I had any new email and it returned a list of all my unread emails. I asked when my next alarm was snd Siri responded that I have 3 alarms with the next one being Monday morning at 5am.
You obviously haven't seen Windows lately.
There were certainly some missteps when iOS 8 was released, but Apple will pull it back together.
While Siri isn't perfect I get better answers in most cases, and you don't have to address your phone by "name" ...
Q: "When is my next alarm?"
A: "You have three alarms set. The next one is set for 8:00. It isn't on though."
And yes, it does provide my list of alarms. Useful if I want to turn one on or off.
Q: "Did it freeze last night?"
A: "OK, I found this on the web for [...]"
It fails there because it doesn't seem to understand the context of "freeze". If I ask if it was "below zero" then it does say it can't get past weather information.
Q: "Do I have any mail?"
A: "You have at least 25 emails since February 1, 2012"
Here it shows my email inbox, old and new, and my oldest message is from the date above. All good information. If I change the query to "Do I have any new mail?" I get only my unread emails.
Finally, I get the point you want to make with your last question, but Siri is handy for searches as well.
If you ask Siri "Search Tom Landry" it will open Safari and search "Tom Landry" with Bing. If you ask "Google Tom Landry" it does the same but with Google's search engine.
I definitely see the need for Siri to improve, but I am not of the mind that the service is useless. It's good and getting better, Apple may just need to work a little faster.
The traffic alert does sound useful, but I don't really get the use of the reminders when someone calls or texts. I just have a list of reminders and assign times to get them done. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong?
I could see being able to say to Siri, "Remind me to ask my wife......." and then seeing that reminder pop up on the screen when I go to answer or make a call from/to her being pretty useful, actually.
Good to know thanks. I'd used it enough to test it, but not enough to give it a fair amount of time to find quirks. Funny you mention it though, I don't jailbreak...but when I first heard about that tweak, it was the first tweak i'd heard of that made me think about doing it.
No.
"Hey Siri" will be way more useful when NOT plugged in. If my phone is plugged in, usually I'm away from my phone so how often is "Hey Siri" useful. Now, if I have my phone on me, and let's say I'm typing something, something springs to mind, I just say "Hey Siri" and not have to do the annoying hold down for 2-3 seconds to bring up Siri. Not to mention you need to time it right or you will quickly bring up Siri and it then will quickly close.
I agree with you. Until Apple makes it so that Siri *only* activates when the key phrase is specifically used, there's no way I want "Hey Siri" to work with the phone unplugged.
I've lost count of how many times "Hey Siri" activated on both a plugged in 5s and a plugged in 6 when neither the words "Hey" nor "Siri" were uttered. It's pretty embarrassing when I'm sitting at my desk on my work phone and my iPhone starts chiming and saying "I don't know what you mean by...."
As a person who has been described by friends as an Apple fanboy, I have to say this ad cracked me up. Pretty darn good ad which showcased Cortana's far smoother voice and perhaps more useful functions although those functions weren't really elaborated upon.
Much better than the drivel Samsung comes up with and claims to be a successful advert.
And I do agree too that Siri can be made far more intelligent and contextually aware than it is currently.
Much better than the drivel Samsung comes up with and claims to be a successful advert.
And I do agree too that Siri can be made far more intelligent and contextually aware than it is currently.
Yeah, I turned the feature off after Siri started talking while I was in a meeting with my phone plugged in.
I'd like to have a job working at Microsoft. I'd have all kinds of fun doing Mac Vs. PC ads with the release of the god-awful looking and bug-ridden Yosemite. But then I'd look at Windows 7 and then at Windows 8 and I'd be right back to face-palming since it more or less did the same thing (i.e. ruin their best looking interface).
1st: Do people actually use these things? Siri was cool for about 5 minutes on my 4S. Google Now was cool for about 5 minutes on my Galaxy S5. Both stink and it's usually easier to just do whatever you are doing vs talking into the phone and looking like a dork...
Hopefully Apple will be upset enough to ditch the garbage known as Bing as the default search though.
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Can't comment on the looks as I think Yosemite looks fine.
But it's been rock solid on:
2008 Unibody Macbook Pro
2012 Macbook Pro (13")
2013 27" iMac
Stays up for as long as Mavericks did (I don't reboot but to patch), and works just as hard....
Hopefully Apple will be upset enough to ditch the garbage known as Bing as the default search though.
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Can't comment on the looks as I think Yosemite looks fine.
But it's been rock solid on:
2008 Unibody Macbook Pro
2012 Macbook Pro (13")
2013 27" iMac
Stays up for as long as Mavericks did (I don't reboot but to patch), and works just as hard....
Cortana doesn't quite sound like that, but it's WAY more useful and impressive, technically speaking, than Siri is. Siri is a party trick at best.
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The Hodgman/Long commercials never mocked the USER of a device though - Microsoft's tend not to either (though they are a lot less playful than the classic Mac/PC ads), but Samsung really leans hard on making fun of Apple users.
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The Hodgman/Long commercials never mocked the USER of a device though - Microsoft's tend not to either (though they are a lot less playful than the classic Mac/PC ads), but Samsung really leans hard on making fun of Apple users.
Since you're in the business of correcting people you should correct yourself in regards to Cortana's voice. Did you see on the ad that it said simulation? It does say screens but I've heard Cortana in person and she certainly doesn't sound nearly that good. This is a Microsoft ad after all. Of course they're going to fake it a bit to trump Apple.
I'm not intentionally trolling. In the past, I'd say stuff like "Set an alarm for half an hour", and it'd make an alarm for some particialr time of day. Do this a few times, and your alarm list gets huge, and such a question will return them all. I have since altered my behavior and requested "to remind me" in half an hour, which doesn't add an alarm.
My point about the mail thing is it's an example where whatever I asked, to a human, would have meant "email", but to Siri, didn't have a context match. Such statements (whatever they may be) are not regularly fixed, and instead of Siri bending to the will of the human, the human must adjust the pace and content of the "natural language" used towards Siri.
It's improving, but my point was trying to be: in 2 years, it hasn't improved much at all.
(I am not intentionally trolling. Perhaps I'll start using Siri more, but it just frustratingly defaults to web searches more often, without ANY means of correcting or improving itself when it does)