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Nuance CEO Confirms Siri Partnership with Apple
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There's a house for sale down the street from me. I can get their contact number for you.
Siri's biggest problem, IMO, is lack of common sense intelligence. I ask it to call my fiancé, who is literally 80% of my phone calls. It brings up 5 results for people whose names start with the same letter 
Probably the most infuriating is when I'm driving and am dictating a text message. I'll get all the way to "Would you like me to send it?" and it just stops listening and cancels the whole thing. Major road rage.
I guess the alternative is Google, which literally combs through your stuff. Seriously - thanks for tracking my FedEx package, but it's creepy that they pulled that out of my email without asking
Probably the most infuriating is when I'm driving and am dictating a text message. I'll get all the way to "Would you like me to send it?" and it just stops listening and cancels the whole thing. Major road rage. I guess the alternative is Google, which literally combs through your stuff. Seriously - thanks for tracking my FedEx package, but it's creepy that they pulled that out of my email without asking
Exactly. It's a shame as developers have been able to tap into Siri's potential. SiriProxy has been around for a while, some have used it in conjunction with Philip's Hue, allowing Siri to turn lights on/off, change colors, etc. This is one instance the "walled garden"/application sandboxing is hurting Apple's development.
I hope Cook was sincere with his recent statement re: opening up iOS further for developers. The lack of access to iOS native apps/functions isn't helping.
why would they admit this?
because siri's voice recognition sucks for everything other than routine commands... try telling it to play a song by an artist in your ipod or telling it to get you information on a movie - it sucks.
Siri is much better at what it is meant to do than Google's. However, Google's interface being on-device and not server based tips it in Google's favor alone. Its that huge.
I've found Siri does a better job understanding my queries when it works. Its featureset has grown in 2 years, but not enough. It needs integration with third party apps. It needs on-device understanding.
I've found Siri does a better job understanding my queries when it works. Its featureset has grown in 2 years, but not enough. It needs integration with third party apps. It needs on-device understanding.
Does anyone *but* Nuance do this? Speech recognition isn't really a "roll your own" thing, and the few who try are usually bought by Nuance.
I would expect that to appear some time in 2010 when ever they finally release iOS 4.
On the other hand, Siri can be lots of fun:
Me: "Have you ever taken the Turing Test? And please don't search the web for it."
Siri: "I don't understand 'Have you ever taken the two ring test and please don't search the web for it' would you like me to search the web for it?"
Siri sucks because it tries to guess what you're trying to say, where as diction is great because it's just recognizing your speech.
Anyone care to ask Siri when Apple is going to do something great again? I just asked Google, it laughed and forwarded me to a picture of Steve....
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macrumors 65816
Makes sense
We've used Nuance in network IVR systems and it was about as good as speech rec could get. These days, I find Google tends to recognise what I'm saying better than Siri (but know some people have the reverse issue).
We've used Nuance in network IVR systems and it was about as good as speech rec could get. These days, I find Google tends to recognise what I'm saying better than Siri (but know some people have the reverse issue).
uhm thats what i meant? why would they admit to be responsible for such a beta product
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this is supposed to say "Play a song by Justin Timberlake"
gotta love siri
end of the story i had to turn siri off because if i hear "want me to search the web?" one more time im going to throw my iphone against the wall.
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I call BS. A search for Chipotle in NY yields good results all over Manhattan.
I actually like Siri and often get good results, unlike most people on here it seems.
However, I wish Siri had offline support. When I'm underground on the subway, Siri doesn't work at all. When I'm in a low-coverage 3G area, or worse 2G, Siri sometimes fails or takes way too long. Obviously I don't expect Siri to look up info for me offline, but surely it can dial a number or send a text or add something to my reminders app without an internet connection.
I believe Android has this, it can handle dictation and simple commands offline. I wish Siri could too.
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Do you have Siri set to Dutch or something?
However, I wish Siri had offline support. When I'm underground on the subway, Siri doesn't work at all. When I'm in a low-coverage 3G area, or worse 2G, Siri sometimes fails or takes way too long. Obviously I don't expect Siri to look up info for me offline, but surely it can dial a number or send a text or add something to my reminders app without an internet connection.
I believe Android has this, it can handle dictation and simple commands offline. I wish Siri could too.
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Do you have Siri set to Dutch or something?
I get it that YMMV, but these examples work 99.9% of the time just fine, even with headphones and walking in busy Manhattan traffic.
There is a lot of FUD in this thread.
By the way, the integration with Wolfram is fantastic.
German but that doesnt change the fact that it should recognize english artists or songs if i want to use the music control feature. english words work fine on google now. siri needs to be bilingual
99%? Maybe in the US, everywhere else its more realistically 40%. Quick example - I'm in North London, United Kingdom. I have an Asda Walmart about 5 miles away. Here's what Siri said just now:
Words fail me. How the hell did it decide that it wanted to look in Texas?!
Minor updates, the fact remains Siri is mostly useless and FAR behind its primary competitor.
Neeeeexxt...
Mine isn't as bad as yours. It's managed to stay in England though it's found the Bristol store which is 70 miles away and ignored the one in Birmingham that's only 15 miles away.
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Siri for me, is an overrated and under performing utility which I never use for the latter reason.
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Yes. Pretty useless in the UK and France.
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99%? Maybe in the US, everywhere else its more realistically 40%. Quick example - I'm in North London, United Kingdom. I have an Asda Walmart about 5 miles away. Here's what Siri said just now:
Words fail me. How the hell did it decide that it wanted to look in Texas?!
Yes. Pretty useless in the UK and France.
Maybe these complaints are why
They kept it off the iPhone 4 ?? I don't know why they limited it to 4S and 5.
I am still a bit flabbergasted that Maps doesn't provide turn-by-turn directions on the iPhone 4.
Google Maps does. It's not the hardware, the iPhone 4 is up to it... it was a seemingly arbitrary decision.
I have great experiences with Maps but the trouble of course is the reliance on incomplete data from Yelp for places. Not every place is on Yelp.
Google simply had a gargantuan head start with the data for everything.
They kept it off the iPhone 4 ?? I don't know why they limited it to 4S and 5.
I am still a bit flabbergasted that Maps doesn't provide turn-by-turn directions on the iPhone 4.
Google Maps does. It's not the hardware, the iPhone 4 is up to it... it was a seemingly arbitrary decision.
I have great experiences with Maps but the trouble of course is the reliance on incomplete data from Yelp for places. Not every place is on Yelp.
Google simply had a gargantuan head start with the data for everything.