Siri Answers 83% of Questions Correctly in Test, Beating Alexa But Trailing Google Assistant

[incoherent_1]

I personally use Siri for far more than basic tasks.

I use Siri on the HomePod, Apple Watch, Apple TV and iPhone to control and monitor my entire house including the backyard Pool pump and pool heating, the robot vacuum cleaner, all the lights, the security cameras, multiple smart switches, 2 Apple TVs, Home Security System and multiple Macs. The only thing I can't control so far is my ducted Air conditioning, but that doesn't work with Alexa or Google either. And I have the reassurance that my home is far more secure and private than if it was controlled using Amazon or Google.

I ask Siri what the temperature is in the living room, to convert ounces to grams, to place and receive phone calls, to play "music I would like in the Living room and kitchen", to add items to the shopping list, to start the robot vacuum cleaning the house, to turn off or dim lights when I'm watching movies, Speech to text dictation on the iPhone and Mac and the list goes on.

It works extremely well with excellent accuracy in my experience with my Aussie accent.

That’s awesome! I’m very happy for you that it works so well!

Unfortunately I think you’re in the minority (at least in my experience/sphere of friends & family). My concern is that Apple (and results like this) are focusing on people like yourself who have a lot of success with it.

Not to take away from your great experience, but many many people have terrible experiences (with many giving up altogether). I just hope they can refine Siri into something that works as well for everyone as it does for you

 

[Rocwurst]

That’s awesome! I’m very happy for you that it works so well!

Unfortunately I think you’re in the minority (at least in my experience/sphere of friends & family). My concern is that Apple (and results like this) are focusing on people like yourself who have a lot of success with it.

Not to take away from your great experience, but many many people have terrible experiences (with many giving up altogether). I just hope they can refine Siri into something that works as well for everyone as it does for you

I'm not sure incoherent_1. All my family and friends use Siri in my smart house as well and it works great for them as well - and of course this empirical study agrees as well.

What language/accent do you have? Perhaps that is the reason?

 

[Tech198]

I like these tests..

depends on how 'accurate you want the response would be, would tailor the score accordingly as well. Some may just want a direct answer only... which would be a pretty narrow field.

I imagine Siri more like a Google search. If your lucky, you'll hit the nail exactly.

 

[incoherent_1]

I'm not sure incoherent_1. All my family and friends use Siri in my smart house as well and it works great for them as well - and of course this empirical study agrees as well.

What language/accent do you have? Perhaps that is the reason?

American/Aussie/British/South African all in the immediate family. No success for any of us.

 

[Wilsonka]

Does anyone remember how much better Siri used to be? I don't understand why with the "continuous improvements" put into the AI it understands less and less.

Also does anyone remember when you could talk to Siri? Not anymore. Now it's on a Q&A basis and no conversation is possible. I am kinda waiting for the moment when you would say "Hey Siri, make a reminder for 2 pm." "OK. What do you want me to remind you of?" "Call Jen." "Calling Jen, mobile." - for Siri would no longer "remember" his/her (mine is set to a male voice) question.

 

[Ted13]

Does anyone else feel like this is crap? 99.8% of the time Siri doesn’t work for me (though my friends’ Alexa does). Period. It’s even worse when I try to use it and there are 2 or more apple devices in the vicinity.

Guessing that you are using Alexa via an Echo or equivalent and *not* using Siri via a HomePod. If your Alexa is better, it is all about the microphones. Get a HomePod, and suddenly Siri will vastly improve.

 

[deputy_doofy]

Will these findings affect anyone’s purchase decisions though?

More often than not, I suspect people buy products for a myriad of other reasons. If I am using an iPhone and Apple Watch, I am using Siri for the lack of any other alternative. If I buy an amazon echo, it’s likely due to the price, and not due to Alexa being any better.

Is there anyone here switching from an iPhone to an android phone specifically for google assistant baked into the OS at a system level? I highly doubt it.

Ultimately, however superior google assistant may be, it doesn’t matter to the end user because of the control that Apple wields over their ecosystem.

Agreed. Siri just happens to come with the products I want thus, it is what it is.

The Echo Dot (gen 3), on the other hand, was $20 on sale. I bought a few.

 

[Jtpryan]

You still talk to your phone? Very 2000.

 

[Wando64]

Nope, never got all the siri hate. I have very few issues with using Siri, I use it daily around my house.

I use it as well, but this doesn’t make it better than Alexa.
No hate, just a matter of fact observation.

 

[nwcs]

Crowd sourcing. Wisdom of the crowds.

With the internet, and forums in particular, it’s actually group think not wisdom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

 

[apolloa]

I'm not sure about the methodology they used to reach these results, but my anecdotal experience is that Alexa does a MUCH better job than Siri on almost everything I've tried to use them for.

Was about to say the same thing! Alexa is brilliant, Siri is more or less useless.

 

[trifid]

Severely suspect test done by this suspect entity "Loup Ventures' Gene Munster".

Siri is worse than a caveman.

 

[ipponrg]

Or as many analysts have pointed out, Apple has been improving Siri at a faster rate than other voice assistants, but feel free to believe whatever supports your worldview.

Cool. Food for thought. Have you thought that was how bad Siri originally was, so therefore it has the most room to grow?

Sounds like you haven’t!

 

[paulvee]

Great that, in this dumbed-down world, SIRI apparently answers questions correctly. In my experience, though, using SIRI all day for dictating, its voice recognition capabilities are awful and the hit rate for accuracy is far less than 83%.

 

[pratikindia]

Siri is the worst. She does not even understands properly.

 

[HiFiGuy528]

people don't talk about how Siri can do many on device tasks while GA can not do the basic tasks. e.g. turn on/off wifi, bt or tell you your current location or battery level of your BT headphones and phone, etc. GA is total garbage that is only good for searching the web.

 

[mi7chy]

Indeed, Voicebot.ai reports that Siri dominates the Voice Assistant market in terms of actual usage to the tune of 45.6% marketshare compared to Google Assistant on 28.7%, Alexa on 13.2%, Samsung's Bixby on 6.2% and Microsoft's Cortana on 4.9%.

Makes sense Siri usage is higher since you have to repeat the query multiple times but even that doesn't guarantee a correct response. Google Assistant, on the other hand, gets it right the first time virtually every time and is the current gold standard.

 

[archer75]

I don't think most people actually compare. Or have compared recently. I own all 3 and do and siri is far better than people give it credit for.
Just this morning I asked google what time a café opens. It wouldn't tell me the time, only that it was open now. Siri on the other hand told me the time it opens which is what I wanted. Just one example.

 

[Just sayin...]

My personal experiences somewhat contradict this study. When I’ve asked Siri “Siri, take me to the nearest Starbucks”, I get sent to a store about 7 miles away. The same query of Google Assistant takes me to the store I know is 1.5 miles away. Right now, I am 1 mile away from a Safeway store I just made a purchase in - when I ask Siri “hey Siri, where is the nearest Safeway?” , it shows me that the nearest store is 9 miles away. However, when I phrase the query “hey Siri, where is the nearest grocery store?”, it shows up. Google Assistant finds it first time, every time. That said I’ve seen other improvements in Siri lately, like “Hey Siri, where is the nearest cheap gas?” ...and “Hey Siri, where is the nearest ATM?” - both of which used to result in web searches and not directions, but now respond correctly. That said, at home, Alexa and Google are FAR more accurate than Siri in answering my questions.

 

[KGBguy]

Apple's Siri is pretty dumb and useless, and I don't think it will change anytime soon.

 

[Baymowe335]

Siri doesn't work properly for me. Not sure how they've managed to get this results.

Stop asking questions about the meaning of life. Siri is flawless for commands and stuff you'd use an assistant for on a daily basis. This is evidenced by the test results.

I think people ask ridiculous questions and wonder why they don't get great results.

 

[kis]

I seriously doubt they asked a HomePod though. That thing can’t answer sh**

 

[swingerofbirch]

This is not my experience.

Siri can't even transcribe well let alone answer questions well.

Also really basic things don't work like:

"Call 225-5555" and Siri transcribes it as "Call *to* 25-5555" and then can't dial the number.

It does the same with the number 4 (call for instead of Call 4).

 

[archer75]

My personal experiences somewhat contradict this study. When I’ve asked Siri “Siri, take me to the nearest Starbucks”, I get sent to a store about 7 miles away. The same query of Google Assistant takes me to the store I know is 1.5 miles away. Right now, I am 1 mile away from a Safeway store I just made a purchase in - when I ask Siri “hey Siri, where is the nearest Safeway?” , it shows me that the nearest store is 9 miles away. However, when I phrase the query “hey Siri, where is the nearest grocery store?”, it shows up. Google Assistant finds it first time, every time. That said I’ve seen other improvements in Siri lately, like “Hey Siri, where is the nearest cheap gas?” ...and “Hey Siri, where is the nearest ATM?” - both of which used to result in web searches and not directions, but now respond correctly. That said, at home, Alexa and Google are FAR more accurate than Siri in answering my questions.

My experience is the opposite. Google sometimes can't find the right store or sends me to a more distant one where siri does find the right one. This isn't 100% true but overall, for my area, siri seems to work a tad bit better.
Asking queries that may involve a web search is better suited to google and alexa. But everything else works very well on siri.

 

[imola.zhp]

Siri on my XS is terrific at understanding me, but on my Apple Watch Series 4, it is DREADFUL.

Must be the microphone, because I can barely whisper into my iPhone to control my smart lights and it almost always comprehends. On the watch though, no matter how clearly I speak, it screws up half the time. It's gotten to the point I don't even bother.

I have the same setup, plus a HomePod, and my experience is about the same. I think my Series 3 was better than my Series 4. I mentioned the following last week regarding Siri and iPhone and HomePod...

"I love it [the HomePod], but sometimes my devices fight when I ask for something. Like Tuesday night for example, I asked my phone to skip a track, my phone was playing music while I was cutting my own hair in the bathroom. No doors closed, no one else was home, but the homepod started playing music in the kitchen with this request that was directed at the phone. So then I asked Siri to stop, what do you know, the phone took that request and stopped playing music while the homepod in the kitchen continued to play something random. So I had to stop what I was doing, pick up my phone and stop the homepod and resume my phone. Talk about a 'smart home' fail."