Siri on HomePod Asked 800 Questions and Answered 74% Correctly vs. Just 52% Earlier This Year

[DNichter]

you can install it on your iPhone. though I don't believe it responds to "ok google" and you need to manually launch the app

Apparently you can set up a Siri shortcut to say "Hey Siri, OK Google" - messy and I haven't tried it, but one could if so inclined. Google assistant is smart, but my parents have one and say it doesn't always understand or hear them. That could be user error too, I will admit.

 

[Abazigal]

It can only do so much with a wall around privacy, Apple will never overtake them probably because they are so far behind

Given the increased scrutiny surrounding Facebook, Apple’s focus on privacy just might pay off in the long run.

 

[LordVic]

Apparently you can set up a Siri shortcut to say "Hey Siri, OK Google" - messy and I haven't tried it, but one could if so inclined. Google assistant is smart, but my parents have one and say it doesn't always understand or hear them. That could be user error to, I will admit.

Nah, I have google assistant and there are times where it's not perfect either. I've used both google Assistant and SIRI and they both work for the most part.

I do find that despite a few weird responses out of Google's Assistant it understood me more often than SIRI. it was more reliable and offered better results. Howver SIRI was far from Crap. it just isn't as good.

Like the other day on my Assistant. it overheard my brother and I talking and heard "ok google" somewhere. and then interpretted our intermingled voices (we sound similar), and somehow started playing "Europe - The Final Countdown" on all our speakers. that was... odd. Or "hey google, give me directions to <name>" and getting "we can't find any contact by that name" despite having that contact (it's misinterpreting the name)

But then I'll get oddball non-contextual results from SIRI on things. "Hey SIRI, When's the next Leafs game?" and the result is just "Here is a list of searches for Leaves" or "SIRI what's the weather?" "here's a search for Whether"

 

[Red Oak]

Siri has indeed gotten much better. Just yesterday I asked the following question and got a richly contextualized answer:

Q: "Hey Siri, is it normal for my new iPad Pro to be bent?"

A: "Yes, it's normal for Apple to bend its customers over"

<pounding on furiously a 2009 iMac in his parent's basement>

 

[truthertech]

So three out of 10 questions are answered wrong. That's still horrible enough to never trust it.

It's unfortunate that you don't "trust" any of them, but you aren't understanding the math here. There are some things that haven't been turned on yet, so Siri can't answer them, but it doesn't mean the answer is "wrong" in the sense that you can't "trust" the answer. You're assuming that when you ask something the answer is wrong in the sense of Siri couldn't, for example, multiply correctly, but that is very different. In reality, the things that Siri , or Google, can do, you'll be completely confident in the answer as she is close to 100% accurate, e.g., what's the weather like, set a timer for, what's the traffic like, play my early morning music list, who won the Patriots game last night, etc.

 

[MistrSynistr]

HomePod is the sleeper hit this year. I bought two, got one for someone, sound fantastic, never had an issue with Siri, use it as a Smarthome Hub, it's great.

THAT BEING SAID. For $100 off. Haha. I'd never pay $350 for them.

 

[DNichter]

Nah, I have google assistant and there are times where it's not perfect either. I've used both google Assistant and SIRI and they both work for the most part.

I do find that despite a few weird responses out of Google's Assistant it understood me more often than SIRI. it was more reliable and offered better results. Howver SIRI was far from Crap. it just isn't as good.

Like the other day on my Assistant. it overheard my brother and I talking and heard "ok google" somewhere. and then interpretted our intermingled voices (we sound similar), and somehow started playing "Europe - The Final Countdown" on all our speakers. that was... odd. Or "hey google, give me directions to <name>" and getting "we can't find any contact by that name" despite having that contact (it's misinterpreting the name)

But then I'll get oddball non-contextual results from SIRI on things. "Hey SIRI, When's the next Leafs game?" and the result is just "Here is a list of searches for Leaves" or "SIRI what's the weather?" "here's a search for Whether"

Got ya. When I say Siri, I am referring to my HomePod. I turned Siri off on all my other devices as it never worked as well for me. The HomePod hears me correctly every time and from almost anywhere in the house. It's pretty impressive in those areas, it's just limited in what it can actually do.

Haha it's always weird when it responds out of nowhere, especially with a random song. This has happened to me too. I think both services are pretty comparable, with their own weird quirks. I'd give the edge to Google though.

 

[AirunJae]

It's curious that the Echo, which is mainly designed for commerce, falls so far short in that area. I would have thought it would be the one thing it did well.

My initial thought was that it was more so related to local commerce, like where to eat/get a haircut/buy an item, so of course Google would win that. However, you make a good point. I suppose it depends what questions made up the Commerce section.

 

[Vanilla35]

I must say 100% recognition rate for Google Assistant is rather impressive. It only takes a few attempts with an assistant not understanding you for you to assume it's useless and not attempt to use it in the future.

 

[truthertech]

A common misinterpretation that people make when they read the headlines in these tests is that Siri and the other assistants are giving "wrong" answers a good portion of the time, when in fact, it's usually that the assistant can't do the task asked. For example, I use Siri everyday and for the things I ask Siri to do, she is extremely accurate-set alarms, reminders, timers, make a phone call, send a text, tell me my appointments, play a song, tell me the traffic, read me the news, play a podcast, give me directions.

In other words, Siri, as all the assistants, can improve a lot, but in contrast to the Internet myth, Siri can do what the vast majority of people want a digital assistant to do.

 

[Vanilla35]

I think Siri handles your basic requests fairly well. Messages, playing music, HomeKit, timers, weather, etc it is perfectly fine. When you start getting into the goofy stuff like ordering food, groceries, etc then it falls short.

How many people are actually trying to use their devices to do something that Siri is unable to accomplish? What are the commands that are not working?

As a pretty average user of Voice Assistants here (someone who doesn't use it very often, and forgets to use it for months at a time), that is honestly the only thing I would want to use it for.

I use siri on my watch to set times or calendar events, but other than those basic functions, if I'm going to ask siri something, it's going to be a complicated request. Basically anytime I would normally bring safari and type something in google to get information, I would love to just ask siri instead.

Since siri can't do this well though, it's relatively useless for me. Google assistant on the other hand, is useful in this way. I just think it's more next-level.

 

[Gorms]

Why do we even talk about any of these percentages like they're even remotely acceptable?

If your keyboard only produced the correct character 80% of the time, or your touchscreen discarded 20% of touches, or your speaker only streamed 80% of a song, not a soul would be okay with that.

Siri on your iPhone or Mac is a funny novelty. The moment it becomes the only way you can interact with a device? Who on earth would find that acceptable? Maybe you'd be willing to buy such a device if it was priced like a whoopie cushion or silly putty (so, you know, ~$5), but for $300?

And this isn't even getting into the fact that this basic test is EASY! We're not expecting the devices to be productive contributors every conversation - these are tailored queries - softballs - meant to be easily within the realm of what the devices are supposed to be capable of doing!

You really need to look up why we tend to use the QWERTY keyboard my dude, then you need to consider that Voice input is still, basically, in that typewriter stage.

I know you and others on here think it should be perfect, but trust me, this is a really, really, hard thing to get 100% right.

 

[AirunJae]

I just don't understand why there aren't third-party apps for HomePod yet. I'd buy an interactive story game thing, or Duolingo... there are tons of possibilities given the quality of the hardware in the device already.

Probably the same reason Apple hasn't opened up the Watch to 3rd Party watch faces, they don't want it to turn into an utter mess. That said, I understand your frustration and wish they'd loosen up the reins a little bit.

 

[WilliamG]

Still unacceptable for the company that pioneered the virtual assistant.

Siri had a lead and it is now miles behind Alexa in intelligence, which in turn is behind Google Assistant by quite a ways

But...music sounds better 100% of the time. Sounds good to me. I just bought another.

 

[Lazrhog]

I’m lucky if Siri does anything. Siri on the Apple Watch is the worst experience ever. Alexa meets all expectations. Apple would need to do something truly spectacular to regain ground

 

[imola.zhp]

Our homepod is bringing down those stats... Sometimes I wonder if its the southern accent.

 

[Kanyay]

"Hey Siri, who got the hottest album out rn?"
If she doesn't reply with me, she lyin' and those stats in the article are wrong.
I don't have a homepod so I can't test this. If someone else could, maybe we could verify these statistics.

 

[AirunJae]

Apparently you can set up a Siri shortcut to say "Hey Siri, OK Google" - messy and I haven't tried it, but one could if so inclined. Google assistant is smart, but my parents have one and say it doesn't always understand or hear them. That could be user error to, I will admit.

We've got Google Home's as well, and yeah, it doesn't always hear or understand us either. My wife likes to blame my rural accent when it doesn't hear/understand her, although I've given her Google account access, so it should have a copy of her "Hey Google" voice

 

[69Mustang]

Just skimmed over the article and a lot of them are hindered by privacy, such as access to their messages, phone book, phone records, location data of you and family members, and also access to order anything from Amazon.

That's kind of what I meant by not using privacy as a crutch to excuse Siri's performance. Siri performed best in the category that required the most private info so privacy wasn't a hindrance for Siri. Double irony, as you pointed out, others were hindered by privacy. Whoda thunk it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[AirunJae]

Our homepod is bringing down those stats... Sometimes I wonder if its the southern accent.

Ha! My wife blames my "southern" accent for our Google Home not understanding her

 

[DNichter]

We've got Google Home's as well, and yeah, it doesn't always hear or understand us either. My wife likes to blame my rural accent when it doesn't hear/understand her, although I've given her Google account access, so it should have a copy of her "Hey Google" voice

Yea, definitely some pros and cons of each. HomePod hardware with Apple music and Google smarts would be a great product, but I am happy with what I have.

 

[iZac]

I’ll consider Siri a failure until it never again says:

“Here’s what I found on the web for <insert search query>”

 

[Vanilla35]

I want to try the Google assistant one day.

It's very very good. (I'm not an android guy)

 

[DiamonDecoden]

Not that the Google Assistant is perfect but Siri really falls short behind other voice assistant even Bixby because it cannot do anything without wifi / data even setting simple timer on the phone. There is no doubt Siri falls short.

I wish we can change the default assistant to Google Assistant instead of Siri.

 

[Uofmtiger]

Yea, definitely some pros and cons of each. HomePod hardware with Apple music and Google smarts would be a great product, but I am happy with what I have.

It really depends how you use the product. The thing is, if you don't want to use Google or Alexa for music, they can coexist with HomePod. They are cheap and fit anywhere with a power plug.

I have the Google Home Mini and I just don't really have much use for it. The Amazon Dot, on the other hand, has about 3 skills I use regularly and that makes it worthwhile to even keep one in the same room as the HomePod. I mainly use the HomePod for music, controlling lights, and alarms. The combo works for me.

I have noticed that the HomeKit stuff on the HomePod have gotten faster recently. It is nice not to have a delay when waiting for the lights to come on after giving it a command. The Dots (at least the versions I own) are much slower with my Hue Bulbs than Siri.

If I had a child that was asking me "why is the sky blue" kind of questions all the time, I would definitely have more use for Google Home. Most of the time when I have questions about something, I have a phone in hand.