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Siri Shows Increasing Promise, But Accuracy Falls Short of Google Text Searches

Piggie

Piggie

macrumors G3
Feb 23, 2010
9,117
4,016
alexgowers said:
Siri is more of an experiment than a real feature, it's the interpretation of the sentance that is the exciting part of siri and it's ability to follow a thread.
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Whilst there may be some truth in what you say here.

Let's be honest, can you imagine is Siri was not on Apple but on Windows devices, it would be slagged of here as totally useless.

It's only being given the slack it is being given as it's by Apple.
 
skellener

skellener

macrumors 68000
Jun 23, 2003
1,786
543
So. Cal.
rockland said:
Sorry, but it's been well over half a year, and Siri STILL underperforms. Badly.
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iDisk is gone. iCloud only stores one version of each song/movie for everyone. They don't store all your pictures, only the lats 1000. Siri doesn't work. Hmmmm.....Makes you wonder, well what the heck are those data centers doing? Google releases beta products all the time. Only Apple charges you for them. Want Siri - gotta buy the latest hardware to get it.
 
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MACdaddy859

macrumors member
Nov 15, 2008
67
0
Piggie said:
Whilst there may be some truth in what you say here.

Let's be honest, can you imagine is Siri was not on Apple but on Windows devices, it would be slagged of here as totally useless.

It's only being given the slack it is being given as it's by Apple.
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Bingo
 
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deftdrummer

macrumors regular
Feb 1, 2008
142
1
San Diego
To me this is really a baseless study. Notice the testing environments were not even given the same hardware parameters? A Skullcandy wired headphone / microphone headset was used fur the outdoor testing.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the iPhone 4S has two really good mics on the phone itself. Top and bottom. So wouldn't using the Skullcandy - especially in the noisier environment be doing a disservice to the control of the experiment?

Really lame test if you ask me.
 
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proaudio22

macrumors newbie
Jun 29, 2012
18
0
Why would they use two different audio sources for a comparison? That's stupid. They should have used the same.

I find my 4S internal mic combined with it's noise cancelling mic to be superior to any other. In my car with the air on high, Siri has no clue what I'm saying through the Bluetooth car connection. If I switch to the 4S internal mic, she nails it everytime. I can't help but think the reduced accuracy outside in this test was due to the Skullcandy mic being WORSE than the internal one. I often stand next to diesel trucks at work talking on my phone and people have no clue, the built in mic is fantastic.
 
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proaudio22

macrumors newbie
Jun 29, 2012
18
0
deftdrummer said:
To me this is really a baseless study. Notice the testing environments were not even given the same hardware parameters? A Skullcandy wired headphone / microphone headset was used fur the outdoor testing.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the iPhone 4S has two really good mics on the phone itself. Top and bottom. So wouldn't using the Skullcandy - especially in the noisier environment be doing a disservice to the control of the experiment?

Really lame test if you ask me.
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+1 exactly!
 
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MACdaddy859

macrumors member
Nov 15, 2008
67
0
I like Apple products(obviously I stay on this blog) but I'm a TECH fan first and appreciate technology more than I do a company. Siri blows and it was a very good gimmick by Apple to sell the 4S to many people, I'm not saying ALL people. It doesn't work well most of the time and it's also basic.
 
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JohnDoe98

macrumors 68020
May 1, 2009
2,488
99
Bezetos said:
It was mentioned. What's your point?
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It was mentioned in the first paragraph, but not when giving the stats which is misleading. Also, the whole study is pretty stupid. If you really wanted to see Siri's accuracy, you would have asked Siri to Google those queries, that way we can compare exactly how Siri compares to typed-input. The problem with this study is it is comparing two things at once. Siri's accuracy/comprehension, and Wolfram Alpha vs Google for search queries. How about making some of those queries specific to Wolfram's strengths and then we'll see just how good Google's searching is. Ask it some advanced Math. That or just separate the two different factors being evaluated rather than mixing it all up at the same time. Just a terrible way to run these tests since they are not isolating the random variables.
 
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Yelmurc

macrumors regular
Apr 16, 2008
219
58
Houston TX
Siri still has a lot of work that needs to be done with it. But if Apple can do it right and add more services to it like shopping. They could really start chipping away at Googles revenues from Apple products.

I believe that the next interface war will be voice. Touch is already done and done well. From the Macintosh with a windowed interface to the iPhone and iPad with touch these major shifts in interfaces is where you see shifts the market and where profit is to be made.
 
WannaGoMac

WannaGoMac

macrumors 68030
Feb 11, 2007
2,722
3,992
Turned it off

I found Siri useless for how I use my 4GS (which is without a car).

It's slower than doing things myself (thanks AT&T), often MUCH slower than me doing it since not accurate, and then it uses more battery waiting for a command in the background.

So I turned it off and went back the iPhone Voice Commands (call x, play y). The best part? It works OFFLINE.
 
allmIne

allmIne

macrumors 6502a
Sep 17, 2008
771
0
United Kingdom
Siri's a bit **** in fairness, so this really comes as no surprise. It wouldn't surprise me if it's quietly binned at some point, although I suppose there's more chance of it being absorbed into other projects than binned outright.
 
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Bezetos

macrumors 6502a
May 18, 2012
739
0
far away from an Apple store
JohnDoe98 said:
It was mentioned in the first paragraph, but not when giving the stats which is misleading.
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Oh is it really? :rolleyes:

JohnDoe98 said:
If you really wanted to see Siri's accuracy, you would have asked Siri to Google those queries, that way we can compare exactly how Siri compares to typed-input.
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You've missed the point of this research. Read the article again. It's not about voice recognition, it's about finding information. Read it again.
 
Liquorpuki

Liquorpuki

macrumors 68020
Jun 18, 2009
2,286
8
City of Angels
Lochias said:
Munster's assessment compares two completely different resources, a search engine and a personal assistant.

It compares them only on search (since that is all that Google does).
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Yeah it's a stupid comparison

Google Text Search = a single application

SIRI = speech recognition plus language modeling applied to many applications. Plus I think SIRI also has an adaptive learning component that lets it cater to the user's speech patterns and get more accurate over time. And the language modeling is so processor heavy you can't run the algorithms client side

I don't know why the guy is comparing the two. One is old tech, one is next gen
 
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samcraig

macrumors P6
Jun 22, 2009
16,779
41,982
USA
I still say that if Apple touts Siri in commercials, as a selling point and all over their website as a clear differentiation - it's hard to "hide" behind the beta label.
 
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MACdaddy859

macrumors member
Nov 15, 2008
67
0
M-O said:
google voice is a telecom service... it's not even in the same category as Siri.
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Man Siri is useless for the most part. Get over it my dude. Apple didn't create man. It's okay it flopped. No one is perfect

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samcraig said:
I still say that if Apple touts Siri in commercials, as a selling point and all over their website as a clear differentiation - it's hard to "hide" behind the beta label.
Click to expand...

My point exactly
 
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