Siri performance getting worse?

[jollyreaper]

I find Siri a bit frustrating. When it works well, it's wonderful and you begin to rely on it, expecting it to work. And that's when it works poorly or not at all and you begin to think it rubbish.

Siri seems to be screwing up transcriptions more and more and either giving the "I'm sorry I can't work right" message or just failing silently. I speak something into it, I get the little dots moving side to side and then it just fails. Not even a mistranscription, just disappears like I never said anything.

Occasional failures are understandable. But there comes a certain point where if you can't reliably expect it to work, why bother? If cell phone coverage were as spotty as Siri's performance, few people would justify the cost.

I'd like to see them hammer out the bugs here since the idea is fairly brilliant. Any idea of why things are getting worse instead of better?

 

[mms13]

That's been happening to me too - the little dots like its about to spit out a transcription, and then they just go away with no text. Pretty annoying, considering after a failure it would have been faster to just type it out.

 

[Yzord]

So the dream feature for the 4S is a complete #failure?

 

[vitzr]

Siri is bound to get better as Apple has made a big deal of it. History shows that while it may take a long time, Apple will sort it out. In the mean time it serves it's purpose as a way to lure more people into Apple stores.

 

[MacDawg]

So the dream feature for the 4S is a complete #failure?

Hardly

 

[Dwalls90]

First, it's in beta. I'm somewhat surprised Apple would have released a feature somewhat prematurely.

But I think the main issue is that the iPhone 4S is still being released in new countries and thus everyone is trying Siri like nuts and slamming their servers.

E

 

[Neverbepeace]

I find Siri a bit frustrating. When it works well, it's wonderful and you begin to rely on it, expecting it to work. And that's when it works poorly or not at all and you begin to think it rubbish.

Siri seems to be screwing up transcriptions more and more and either giving the "I'm sorry I can't work right" message or just failing silently. I speak something into it, I get the little dots moving side to side and then it just fails. Not even a mistranscription, just disappears like I never said anything.

Occasional failures are understandable. But there comes a certain point where if you can't reliably expect it to work, why bother? If cell phone coverage were as spotty as Siri's performance, few people would justify the cost.

I'd like to see them hammer out the bugs here since the idea is fairly brilliant. Any idea of why things are getting worse instead of better?

This........

First, it's in beta. I'm somewhat surprised Apple would have released a feature somewhat prematurely.

But I think the main issue is that the iPhone 4S is still being released in new countries and thus everyone is trying Siri like nuts and slamming their servers.

E

Might have a point there.....Siri has been acting funky lately

 

[benhollberg]

I've noticed that Siri has been cleaned up, sexual questions won't receive answers anymore.

 

[Shrink]

I've noticed that Siri has been cleaned up, sexual questions won't receive answers anymore.

So let me get this straight, ben. You feel the need to ask sexual questions of a mechanical voice on your phone??!!

Maybe you should talk to a more authoritative source about sexual matters than your phone. Perhaps some animate entity, or even a human. Maybe PM verwon

 

[HeyGreggie]

First, it's in beta. I'm somewhat surprised Apple would have released a feature somewhat prematurely.

But I think the main issue is that the iPhone 4S is still being released in new countries and thus everyone is trying Siri like nuts and slamming their servers.

E

Because without Siri, releasing the 4s would be like when Danger would release a Limited Edition Sidekick in a different color. Only issue is, iphone didn't release in a different color, but, a different capacity size.

 

[Dwalls90]

Because without Siri, releasing the 4s would be like when Danger would release a Limited Edition Sidekick in a different color. Only issue is, iphone didn't release in a different color, but, a different capacity size.

Look. Much like most other folks, I was disappointed when we had a 4S instead of a 5.

However, the truth is that the 4S is internally nothing like the iPhone 4. Given how great the 4 is, the 4S does't warrant a purchase in itself.

I really don't think most but a 4S just for Siri

 

[jollyreaper]

First, it's in beta. I'm somewhat surprised Apple would have released a feature somewhat prematurely.

I can accept the company saying it's beta and not really advertising it, just having it as another feature that's there on the phone. But that's not what they're doing. They're selling the feature like it's fully-functional. It's not like they put it on the phone, left it off by default and only the online geeks know to enable it and try it out.

But I think the main issue is that the iPhone 4S is still being released in new countries and thus everyone is trying Siri like nuts and slamming their servers.

E

I don't think anyone really cares what the situation is when something they're paying for isn't working properly. Either get it right or keep it in development until it's working.

 

[george-brooks]

This happens to me too occasionally. But hey, the first iPhones didn't even have an app store. It'll get there eventually.

 

[benhollberg]

So let me get this straight, ben. You feel the need to ask sexual questions of a mechanical voice on your phone??!!

No it was funny to ask Siri sexual things and it responded with answers. I just noticed over the weekend that it didn't work anymore.

 

[Stealthipad]

Look. Much like most other folks, I was disappointed when we had a 4S instead of a 5.

However, the truth is that the 4S is internally nothing like the iPhone 4. Given how great the 4 is, the 4S does't warrant a purchase in itself.

I really don't think most but a 4S just for Siri

What do you figure makes the 4S "nothing like the 4"?

Sorry but they were close enough for Apple to name their new device The 4S!!!

If you take away Siri the 4 is nearly an equal. I do not know about the rest of you but I am not getting blinded by the extra speed of the new (now old) processor.

Apple better be stepping up on the 5!

 

[Dwalls90]

What do you figure makes the 4S "nothing like the 4"?

Sorry but they were close enough for Apple to name their new device The 4S!!!

If you take away Siri the 4 is nearly an equal. I do not know about the rest of you but I am not getting blinded by the extra speed of the new (now old) processor.

Apple better be stepping up on the 5!

That's because the iPhone 4 is still a great device. Come iOS 6, you'll begin to feel the age of the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4S hardware really has had no chance to shine because iOS 5 puts it under no real pressure.

 

[bicker]

Siris performance is getting worse because the demand for iPhone 4s is very high so the Siri server is to full and because the every one wants an iPhone 4s the Apple California company doesn't have time to update siri because their trying to get out all of the iPhone 4s

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Its just the server needs updated and if you update Tue iPhone 4 it comes with siri.

 

[gregrose]

Don't put out Siri then if your company can't handle the load.

 

[Rennir]

Yeah, I've been noticing that Siri has gotten much slower recently that I don't use it anymore. Apple will fix this in the next few months most likely otherwise, there'll probably be a lot of complaints considering the next iPhone will include Siri too.

 

[jollyreaper]

Siris performance is getting worse because the demand for iPhone 4s is very high so the Siri server is to full and because the every one wants an iPhone 4s the Apple California company doesn't have time to update siri because their trying to get out all of the iPhone 4s

----------

Its just the server needs updated and if you update Tue iPhone 4 it comes with siri.

So all these months later demand remains impossibly high?

Haven't seen any Siri improvements but the last firmware update made battery life worse. Change I can't believe in!

 

[aluren]

Siri is slow and can't recognize a lot of what I say. It performs nothing like the commercials.

 

[Mliii]

Siri is slow and can't recognize a lot of what I say. It performs nothing like the commercials.

Maybe I'm just fortunate, but Siri has really worked surprisingly well for me... Maybe she just understands my accent!

 

[nooaah]

So the dream feature for the 4S is a complete #failure?

People who hashtag outside of Twitter really irk me.

Siri is a work in process. As a minor investor in AAPL (couple hundred shares), I'm pretty excited by its potential as a very attractive feature across multiple platforms.

 

[jollyreaper]

Potential is fine. But there's a difference between ambition and overreach.

I think public betas are fine for geeks who opt in but absolutely nothing that's featured in product commercials should still be in beta.

It'd be like a movie, fans might want to see work prints of scenes released by the crew during production which is fine. The same goes for test audiences, they know it's not finished and ate providing feedback. But on opening night the film needs to be polished, no glitches, no rough edges, it's done.

 

[roboknight]

Siri does have limitations

I think public betas are fine for geeks who opt in but absolutely nothing that's featured in product commercials should still be in beta.

There really wasn't a way for this feature *NOT* to be in Beta. People have different voices/languages. Without being able to collect a massive amount of data as a test set, they wouldn't be able to improve it. That said, I use Siri all the time, but find it feature poor. You can play a song, if you know the name, but there isn't a way to list the songs in your library. For podcasts its atrocious because there isn't any standard convention for naming podcasts, so you pretty much can't know what the title of any podcast is if you want to request it.

Now, of course, you might say it would be faster to just open up the iPod app and access your stuff that way. But that doesn't work in my primary Siri scenario: a car. Basically, I've found Siri to be an excellent idea in a car. I have even been able to dictate e-mails, although it takes a knack for dictation. SMS messages are pretty good, but if you hesitate too long, you get cut off.

At any rate, I don't agree an advertise feature can never be in Beta, but I will agree that they had some pretty short sited uses for Siri. It doesn't do me any good to ask for a definition of something, only to be displayed information on the screen without a way to HEAR said information. It seems that most of the uses they had for Siri were things like locating restaurants. Also, while the commercials had some "uses" for Siri, there wasn't anywhere I could go that had any kind of exhaustive list. I pretty much just had to try it and wait for it to fail: "Siri, list the albums in my collection." "I'm sorry, I can't access that information."

Note: I've also found Siri works very well with the supplied headphones, but very poorly without any kind of external mic.