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Siri is Now Actively Used on More Than Half a Billion Devices

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In today's announcement about the HomePod's February 9 launch date, Apple quietly provided new data on how many people are using Siri. According to the company, Siri is now actively used on more than half a billion devices.

As noted by Above Avalon's Neil Cybart, that's an improvement over the last Siri data point shared by Apple. Back at the June Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple said Siri was used on more than 375 million iOS devices each month, suggesting Siri usage has increased since the debut of iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra.

hey-siri.jpg

iOS 11 brought several improvements to Siri, including new, more realistic male and female voices designed to more closely mimic natural human speech. Siri also uses on-device learning to understand more about user preference, and syncs that information across all of your devices for a more consistent experience.

Siri in iOS 11 is also able to translate English to Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, and there's a new Type to Siri accessibility feature.

Siri usage is likely to grow further with the introduction of the HomePod, which will be heavily reliant on the personal assistant. Siri is designed to serve as an in-home musicologist on the HomePod, and Apple has been working to improve Siri's understanding of music related data.

On HomePod, Siri will be able to make music recommendations based on personal taste, aiding in music discovery, and Siri will be able to respond to a range of music related commands and queries like "Play more songs like this," "Play something new," "Who's singing?" and "Play more like that."

homepodapplemusic.jpg

Siri on HomePod can also answer questions about a wide range of topics, providing weather updates, sending messages, playing podcasts, checking the news (a feature introduced in iOS 11.2.5), making calendar appointments, offering up data on movie times, and much more, and the personal assistant can be used to control HomeKit devices.

HomePod will launch on Friday, February 9, but Apple will begin accepting orders for the device on Friday, January 26. It will be available in the United States, Australia, and the UK to begin with, and it will cost $349 in the U.S.

Article Link: Siri is Now Actively Used on More Than Half a Billion Devices
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/01/23/siri-usage-half-a-billion-devices/
"used". really unusable for me other than making reminders on my watch and setting those timers from 4S days. I have faith in you Apple. Step your game up. Maybe HomePod will bring some improvements.
 
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I know those who want to bash Siri, but I use it everyday for dictation, searches, AirPod commands, in the car and anything hands free Siri is capable of. Siri has become extremely useful for me in so many situations. It's improved a lot Over the years from my usage.
 
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I asked Hey Google and Alexa “Who is Legolas’s father?” They both quickly answered “Thranduil”.

I asked Siri the same question.

First she told me she doesn’t know who my father is (but apparently thinks I’m talking about someone who is “legless”.

I tried again and she said that I don’t have a Lego List but she can make one for me.

Oh Siri. :rolleyes:

Let’s hope she can hear much better on the Home Pod.

I could not get Siri to understand what I was asking. I had to spell out the name. Keep in mind this doesn’t confuse the other search assistants. They seem to know there is a Legolas out there and that I’m asking about him.
CB9C7444-EBAD-4C23-AAC5-D3838804EB4F.png
 
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I don’t really use it that much. Cause they refuse to open it up to more 3rd party developers. It’s great if all you use is IOS. But if you want to use 3rd party commands with Siri, good luck.
 
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I was reasonably happy with Siri until I had the opportunity to use Alexa and have found them to be night and day. I’ve now bought several Echo devices and cancelled my Apple Music subscription, whereas 6 months ago I would have sworn that I would have bought the HomePod...
 
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Uh... oh... half a billion is when AIs become sentient and start to take over the world. :)
 
Siri is pretty much useless for iPhones and iPads but can be useful for Apple TV and Apple Watch. I use Siri on my Apple Watch for things like saying "Siri play [song] by [artist]" and it then plays the song onto my iPhone. Useful for searching for shows on Apple TV too. Im sure it will be useful for HomePod too. My point is it depends on what Apple products you have whether Siri is useful or not.
 
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Not surprising. However, as a user of Apple products I continue to find myself wanting more and more openness to choose various software options on their hardware.

The core OS works well for me, but I would love for the flexibility to add various third party services like Google Assistant to a more “native” role.

Sure, I could just go Android. However, there are aspects of Apple software and ease I appreciate. The HomePod is a prime example for me. I recently switched to Spotify from Apple Music and HomePod just doesn’t work as well without spotify.

My little Google Mini works great with spotify and I appreciate the ease of just speaking to it for playing.
 
Been an Apple fan for decades and still am. Unfortunately, Siri is still inferior to its competition. I’ve tried for a long time to find ways to integrate it, but it just does not work well. To each their own of course. I hope they find ways to improve it further.
 
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Menopause said:
That's sad, given that it is by far probably the crappiest trash Apple is maintaining. Nothing of Apple comes to mind that is dumber than Siri.
Click to expand...

Of all of the AI assistants, Siri is the most artificial. The canned responses are telltale. After hearing them a dozen times, I’m annoyed by phrases like “A watched pot never boils” and “The suspense is killing me”. After giving an instruction, I usually press the power button to intercept Siri’s remark.
 
Naraxus said:
Apple's privacy doubletalk is really holding Siri back
Click to expand...
In the end you're choosing between the company knowing everything about you for more accuracy and one that limits what they know about you which leads to less accuracy. I'm actually amazed how smart Siri is with all things considered. It will prolly never be on par with Alexa or OK Google but that's because Apple limits how much data it collects where as Amazon and Google don't. For me Siri does what I need it to do. It almost always knows the songs I want played, and when I use my iPhone for news it does fine. Looks up restaurants fine on both Watch and iPhone. So yeah I don't need spot on accuracy, nor would I sacrifice privacy for that accuracy.
 
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You'd think this would improve the accuracy and usefulness, with all that data....
 
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