Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Siri improvements?
- Thread starter kingston73
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Manly the voices. It's a little contextual now with follow up questions. Siri actions are server based and not iOS dependent so updates can happen dynamically without installs. I think (hope) Apple is working VARY hard to get Siri more competitive by iOS 11/HomePod launch.
Slightly disagree. Siri does NOT need to be competitive with any other competitor besides itself. All these voice assistants do the same the thing, aside from more personalized options with Google Assistant. Apple has long been aware of Siri requiring revamping, which is why they hired a team of engineers to reconstruct it two years ago.
What Siri does need, is deciphering And dictation improvements. Anyone using Siri for the past 5 years already understands this. Being Siri is sever based, the responses are derived either accurately at times or completely off.
Apple knows Siri can easily supersede the competitors. And iOS 11 is the next step.
It's no secret that Google Assistant is better than Siri, and may likely be better than Siri after any updates during the beta. Keep in mind, though, that with Google, you are sacrificing privacy for a better service. I'm still optimistic Siri will continue to improve rather quickly, and I have no plans on switching to Google anytime soon.
I’m actually a heavy Siri user, but I recently installed Google Assistant and now I’m just embarrassed for Apple. How the heck could they allow a technology they popularized fall so far behind not only Google, but Amazon?!?
i have 3 Echo devices but before WWDC I was ready to sell them all so I can get a Siri Speaker. But after seeing them completely misunderstand the market and fail to introduce SiriKit then its clear that Apple just doesnt believe in their stuff. And thats sad.
I believe Apple is too hung up on their security beliefs. I think Apple should offer an opt IN option (they could offer clear TOS saying data to be collected) to help gather data to improve the service. They could even randomize it so it's not linked and identifiable to the individual. Google and Amazon on the other hand are piling up the usage data (directly liked to you) to improve their systems and Apple is 'flying' with a blinders on.
I have 3 Echo devices that are always listening. I use google products. I use GPS to track my run routes. I have social media accounts. I use my cellphone number to get text alerts from trusted services. I give personal info to apps in trade for coupons. I allow Apple to get analytics off my apple devices.
Pretty much, I'm like most regular people and am willing to trade ultimate privacy for convenience. So if Apple would offer an Opt-In option that would help make their services better then I'd gladly go for it because so far this whole Privacy thing is working against the products I want to use.
To be honest, I feel like Apples "We care about Privacy" is a marketing angle they stumbled into and are using as a differentiator that they don't necessarily believe in (similar to how they suddenly claim 'Apple cares about Audio Quality' in order to hide the fact that the HomePod voice assistant is lacking).
Apple's new Siri capabilities in iOS11 are more than just marketing about privacy. Apple is the only company that is enabling the development of on-device personal knowledge graph to power your assistant. Previous to iOS11, Siri could just look into your Calendar, Reminders, and Contacts. Now, it can gather information from your search queries, maps searches, chat conversations, and more. As the assistant gets more intrusive into your data, the more important privacy becomes. Apple is keeping this knowledge graph on-device and encrypted so that even Apple can't read it (in cases of a court order). They also employ differential privacy to further develop general demographic knowledge about things like language/dialect, so they pretty much now have all the tools necessary to put them on par with cloud-based AI. Apple may have been behind Google and Facebook when it comes to personalization of the assistant, but they are quickly catching up while maintaining ironclad security/privacy.
I recommend anyone worried about Siri falling behind go watch some recent Youtube videos that compare the iOS11 beta Siri to google's assistant. They basically all show that the New Siri has fully caught up and in many cases exceeded Google Assistant.
Also, the HomePod will have 6 microphones and advanced noise isolation driven by an A8 chip. It wasn't ready to demo at WWDC, but it will certainly hold up to the competition.
I get the sense that Apple isn't done with Siri announcements for the year. I think the new iPhone and HomePods will ship with a machine learning co-processor, and when they do, Apple will talk more about Siri and how it will be a better experience on the new devices. I don't think they were quite ready to show off things at WWDC as the section on Siri seemed really short, and they probably figure it's better to show it off on the new hardware. It makes some logical sense in my head, but I also feel like I might be thinking this because I want it to be true. My intuition is telling me something feels wrong, though.