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Siri Co-Founder Suggests Apple is 'Looking for a Level of Perfection They Can't Get' With Assistant

"a false narrative."

This would be the judgement of Apple and any company who wants to bring the best to the table..

Apple knows it,, they don't wanna admit it. You simply can't have your cake and eat it too..

But Apple want it all... and is finding it tricky along that road while keeping privacy at its front-most at all time.

The only thing making sense, is why isn't Apple pushing Siri further instead of just 'crawling'? I reckon privacy is standing in the way. If something is you mail goal achievement, then it limits on what you can do without to technology and how fare you can push it, without sacrificing anything

What was that issue about iCloud servers being in China?
 
"Siri launched on the iPhone on Oct. 4, 2011. Jobs died the next day".

I think since then, Apple has not known what to do with Siri, or at the very least has no real vision. When people say Cook is a money guy they really seem to be spot on. Creatively speaking, dropped the ball comes to mind. Like so much of Apple it is about profit.

Throw money at something you are bound to come up with some sort of product people will buy. But vision, and creativity cant be bought.

I feel if Apple does eventually come up with something new, aside from upgrades, tweaks, and "S" versions of existing products, it will be Luke warm at best.
 
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Pbrutto said:
Unfortunately, Siri is just part of a whole host of software problems right now at Apple. I think Siri is more of a constant disappointment than anything else. I personally am not even upset with what she can and cant do...I take issue with her lack of speech recognition. When she came out, I understood it, but now that she is required to talk to my HomePod or Apple Watch, it is pathetic the number of errors she gets in speech. I tried whispering, shouting, holding my watch/phone closer, loud rooms, quiet rooms, airplanes, cars, crowded rooms, empty rooms, bathrooms, living rooms, hallways, stairwells, stadiums, boats...etc. etc.....she CANNOT understand me accurately enough no matter what the surrounding or device. I know my girlfriend regularly has the same issue (although admittedly a bit less than me). I think its one thing for recognition to be poor, but once you introduce a device (like the watch) that all but requires voice input....there are no excuses for poor recognition. Let’s not even talk about complex requests....
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I take more issue at the stupid and snide remarks veiled as comedy from Siri. Like get s**t done Siri and stop clowning around. Humans have had years of movies and tech to make us feel comfortable with we don’t require social softening of tech to make it more human sounding. Plus wastes engineering for jokes at its early development stage.

Siri’s comedy and snide remarks should’ve been left in a demo mode for WWDC only.
 
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Quu said:
The point is her answer was March 19th 2019. What year is it fella cause it's not 2019. The answer is just wrong on every level.

It was a perfectly reasonable question.
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Oops, I missed that part but it's not about the accuracy either. I get dates for 2018. Most get dates for 2018. It's always been about consistency. Depending on the server used and Siri's neural learning, it offers different answers to different people at different times. That is something Apple needs to sort out because it's the reason many come here to complain while others come here to praise Siri. That is the real problem and the reason why I only use Siri for tasks based on successful interactions from the past. It's also the result of trying to be all things to all users only to end up being some things to some users.
 
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jonnysods said:
I really think it comes down to privacy. Siri doesn't invade your privacy like Google Now does, so it can't help you as well as Google Now did when I used it for 6 brief months with a Nexus 4. Google just knew things about, it was creepy but so helpful.

I honestly think Siri would improve with one toggle in Settings. Invade Privacy? Yes/No
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Google has granular settings to control what information it “knows” about you... it’s not “invasion of privacy” if you’ve given your consent.
 
LoveToMacRumors said:
Anyone else has Siri disabled?
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I also turned it off on all my Apple devices because it just doesn't work for me as well (if at all) as Google/Amazon.

Hilarious article. Many people on these forums naively say that Apple can always at any day divert their attention to making Siri (or any of their products) improve greatly by hiring more. But you'd have to wonder for Apple if that were the case, why is it they have barely made any progress on Siri vs the competition?
 
Apple has Billions of dollars in cash, how can they not make Siri better? I use Alexa at home, and while it's far from perfect, I'm constantly amazed at how much is wrong with Siri. It's time for Apple to focus on Siri.
 
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Siri needs alot of work to compete with the comp but for

reminders
lights
podcasts
messages

it's fine but yes it does need to improve.

IOS 12 hopefully
 
mi7chy said:
What incentives are there for Apple to improve Siri when customers keep making excuses for how bad she is?
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I just gave Apple a $350 incentive to improve Siri.

The Homepod can not be controlled any other way.

It’s inexcusable to sell the Hompod with Siri still sucking so badly.
I don’t understand why the Homepod was delayed all these months, and now, Siri still sucks. What have they been working on ? Silicone feet ?

-t
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
Take 2: in the second request Siri is working exactly as it's supposed to work. Whatever room you were in when you were making the request is the room in which you are living- your "living room" at that point in time. Thus Siri got it right and you are wrong for apparently thinking a room where you are not at in the moment is a 'living' room. It's not. ;)
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It seems like you don’t understand how Home / HomeKit works.

“Living Room” is a strictly defined area in Home. The HomePad is attached to it, my iPhone is NOT.
If I can’t control things in HomeKit by it’s own labels, the HomeKit / Siri integration is crap.
And that’s exactly my point. They don’t even make an effort to make it work in their own HomeKit eco system.

-t
 
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turtle777 said:
It seems like you don’t understand how Home / HomeKit works. “Living Room” is a strictly defined area in Home. The HomePad is attached to it, my iPhone is NOT.
If I can’t control things in HomeKit by it’s own labels, the HomeKit / Siri integration is crap.
And that’s exactly my point. They don’t even make an effort to make it work in their own HomeKit eco system.
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Sorry, my post was an attempt at a joke. Thus the ;) at the end.

I'm with you in wishing Siri had at least as much attention during the apparent SIX years of HP development. In fact, my biggest hope with HP was not yet another smart speaker coming to market... but that a smarter Siri would launch with it. And then Siri 2.0 would propagate to everything else that can use Siri. Alas, we ended up with only "better quality speaker" instead of a big upgrade of "smarts" in a "smart" speaker.
 
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Relentless Power said:
I use Siri for dictation all the time and it’s actually fairly accurate for what it is. Not only that, but the Apple Watch, AirPods and HomePod, Siri does really well for basic tasking and questions. That’s really what I need it for. And I think others are far too judgmental, could it use improvements in certain areas? Yes. But that’s the nature of artificial intelligence in general.
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Im hearing a lot of Apple’s privacy stance as reasons why Siri could be lacking. Although this maybe true, I feel a lot of social media data is being hidden from public requests without membership (SnapChat is a great example). One can search IG member name and see all their posts on a browser, SnapChap you only see a members tag so you know a member exists; that’s it. Personally, I feel the privacy stance is a bad excuse, and could lead Apple failing to learn or adjust or improve better in the future if Blackberry is a prime example.

BlackBerry took the privacy stance on everything and only when revenues stagnated at 2 billion per year for 4 yrs did they finally realize having to kick their own internally created OS for Android did they begin to innovate further.

I’d like to see Siri have new API function for learning.

Example “Siri learn new phrase: right on. It means thank you, acceptance, appreciation”. Say over 500k entries the Siri team is notified to vet the suggestion as valid before accepting it. We don’t want automatic acceptance where Siri can get very ugly. Just ask Microsoft how their initial bot worked out lol.

I sincerely hope Apples silence has a great trick up its sleeve and will present a huge improvement to Siri that leapfrogs the competition and the industry.
 
My interaction with Siri this morning.

"Siri, get me directions to Cambridge North train station by bike"

  • "Would you like me to get you directions to Cambridge North train station by bike?"

"Yes, I would like directions to Cambridge north train station by bike"

  • "Okay"
iPhone does absolutely nothing except want me to unlock the screen, no voice prompt no nothing. So I unlock the iPhone, it brings up a map of the whole of the UK and that is it. A tab is at the bottom of the screen for Cambridge North Station which I click on and it is directions... BY CAR.

So where did Siri go wrong?

  1. If Siri can't give directions somewhere using bike travel, SAY SO AT THE START.
  2. Why should I have to unlock the iPhone? I used voice message thereby indicating that I don't have the iPhone in hand. If I was on the bike, what use would that be?
  3. No voice prompt. Nothing to tell me I had to unlock the screen. So how do I know what to do? As far as I would know, if the iPhone was out of sight I just think it isn't working.
  4. Even when opened the iPhone did nothing except open the app. I could do that quicker than going through the horror of Siri.
  5. It still required an extra touch prompt to get the directions - even if they were the wrong ones I asked for. Again, useless if I was on the bike.

Siri just simply isn't integrated well enough into the basic phone systems. If I am using Siri, it is because I am NOT holding the iPhone or looking at my iPhone screen.
 
mi7chy said:
That's not an incentive. That's like paying tax to the government and rewarding them for being complacent.
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You are right.

In other words: buying Apple products and hoping for a good voice assistant experience is enabling Apple.

Not sure what else to do.
I’m not going to buy an Android phone or an Amazon tube.

-t
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dannys1 said:
Except in smart home automation where Siri blows it away.
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Really ?
How so ?

Just look at the petty selection of HomeKit compatible devices.

And see my post earlier, Apple can’t even make controlling HomePod connected to their own “smart home” a good experience.

-t
 
turtle777 said:
You are right.

In other words: buying Apple products and hoping for a good voice assistant experience is enabling Apple.

Not sure what else to do.
I’m not going to buy an Android phone or an Amazon tube.

-t
[doublepost=1520767407][/doublepost]

Really ?
How so ?

Just look at the petty selection of HomeKit compatible devices.

And see my post earlier, Apple can’t even make controlling HomePod connected to their own “smart home” a good experience.

-t
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why isn't it a good experience? homepod controls all my lights perfectly.
 
turtle777 said:
I just gave Apple a $350 incentive to improve Siri.

The Homepod can not be controlled any other way.

It’s inexcusable to sell the Hompod with Siri still sucking so badly.
I don’t understand why the Homepod was delayed all these months, and now, Siri still sucks. What have they been working on ? Silicone feet ?

-t
Click to expand...
That's not incentive to do something different, that is a reward for what they are currently doing.

Apple doesn't improve Siri because... it doesn't have to. What are you going to do if they don't improve Siri? Leave the ecosystem?
lol.gif
Nope. Apple knows this. Apple knows that their customers may grumble for a little bit, they get it out of their system, and then continue on... buying Apple products. (which is their primary concern)

You said it is "inexcusable" for Apple to sell the HomePod with Siri still sucking so badly but you bought the HomePod anyways. That's a GOOD excuse. No matter how bad Siri is, people will still buy the HomePod. And sales of it are through the roof! So why should Apple do anything to improve Siri?
 
Geez, I completely forgot that this forum seems to be Apple Fanboi Central.

How dare I critize Apple.

-t
 
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