Siri Still Struggles to Answer Very Basic Questions

[JTK Awesome]

It really has become a complete mess. Things that used to be reliable no longer work, something as basic as the wake word. HomePod mics are so sensitive that you could whisper "Hey Siri" from across the room, over music playing and it would dip the audio to listen to your command. Now, I'm just a few feet away and I have to practically shout HEY SIRI! for it to listen.

I have the constant problem of my bedroom HomePod responding to inquiries directed to the one in my bathroom. Even when I’m just a few feet from the latter, and the former shouldn’t be able to hear me.

HomePods, and Siri overall, haven indeed worsened over time.

 

[Tagbert]

The new Siri from Apple intelligence sounds likes she’s on meth. In comparison to voice assists from ChatGPT or even Grok, Siri is an abomination. Shame on Tim Cook!

There is no new Siri. It is the same Siri with a new animation. Any changes were expected at the end of iOS 18 but now they seem to be coming later.

Siri is very old tech that proved infeasible to extend. Alex and Google Assistant were similar tech and while a little more capable that Siri, they have been only slightly smarter. Those chatbots from ChatGPt and Grok are full LLM AIs which is current tech and obviously can do more than the decades old systems. We hope that Apple follows Amazon and Google in replacing its voice assistant with a full LLM AI to handle the interactions.

 

[Tagbert]

I have the constant problem of my bedroom HomePod responding to inquiries directed to the one in my bathroom. Even when I’m just a few feet from the latter, and the former shouldn’t be able to hear me.

HomePods, and Siri overall, haven indeed worsened over time.

I do wish you could assign names to specific devices so you can direct requests to that one. They can’t all do the same thing but they all want to pickup the request. Also, sometimes you want to play music through the HomePod nearby, not the next room.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

I do wish you could assign names to specific devices so you can direct requests to that one. They can’t all do the same thing but they all want to pickup the request. Also, sometimes you want to play music through the HomePod nearby, not the next room.

Or at the very least, Homepods should have the ability to detect which one you're closest to by seeing whether you're wearing an Apple Watch or carrying your iPhone with you, and looking at the relative signal strength from each. But just the difference in the amplitude of one's voice, depending on which of two or more Homepods the user is closest to, should be able to do this.

 

[Bryan Bowler]

You’re fondling her wrong.

You should see the words I use when talking to her after she replies. It’s a total 180 from my normal personality.

 

[Expos of 1969]

Finland is the leading country for giving girls the name Siiri (short form of Sigrid). It comes from the Old Norse name Sigríðr, which was derived from the elements sigr "victory" and fríðr "beautiful ...

It is clear that Apple's Siri has a long way to go to even come close to living up to her namesake. As a result of this current debacle, a few local Siiri's have put in the paperwork to change their names. Note: that last sentence is pure speculation on my part

 

[iBreatheApple]

I think they should move away from Siri branding, it’s already too stained and even if it’s fixed eventually most people won’t even give it a try.

If they fix they should rebrand it to Apple Assistant or something like that.

I think this is a fantastic idea.

 

[macmac30]

Hey Apple, you know you have a problem when some of your most ardent supporters that own millions of dollars of your stock are ridiculing Siri openly in forums instead of staying quiet. Yes, it's THAT BAD!!! And as a share owner, I'm pissed that you let it get to this point!!!

 

[macmac30]

Sitting here in my garage trying to take a nap and my 2 OG paired HomePods keep playing music automatically. After telling them to stop half a dozen times, I go into the kitchen to find my frustrated wife trying to play music on the new gen two paired HomePods in the kitchen. Apple, what the h#ll is wrong with Siri? Just shameful and embarrassing!! Fix this POS!!!!

 

[daelin]

Remember when Siri was powered by Wolfram Alpha? Good times. It was really capable at knowledge and calculation questions back then. You did have to be much more careful with your phrasing to get the answer you were hoping for.

There was an early high for Siri, then it felt like most of the features were incrementally disabled, where it plateaued for almost a decade. Occasionally we got improvements like third-party app integration. But, today, yeah, it only responds to “when is the next Friday the 13th” with the current date. Usually not even worth trying.

Usually Siri just randomly mutes my podcast to say “I don’t understand”.

 

[splifingate]

Reading this, I then asked Siri (on my HomePod Mini, as Siri on my '23 Studio is well-on towards the "don't look; don't respond; don't talk" end of the Spectrum):

"Hey Siri? What's the weather today?"

"Thunderstorms are predicted, with a high of 23"

"Hey Siri? What month is it?"

"Today is 30 March, 2025"

Nothing that I didn't know, but still affectually cogent