Siri voices

[jackal123uk]

Pre iOS 6 I didn't use Siri all that much (probably due to having limited functionality in the UK) but I vastly preferred the female voice of the US setting to the male voice of the UK.

Now I'm using it more frequently I've realised that the voice setting not only governs the read-back but the recognition side too - probably common knowledge but I've obviously not been paying attention. As such, I've found using the US voice greatly degrades Siri's accuracy compared to using the UK one. For example, under the US setting Siri refuses to recognise the word "quay", using "key" instead which throws off any searches, routes etc.

Anyone know if there's a way to select a voice for read back only and keep the underlaying location setting for recognition?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who prefers and uses a different voice, it'd be interesting to see if those complaining about Siri misunderstanding had fallen into this trap too...

Also, since Apple uses all those siri interactions to improve/update their natural language algorithms wouldn't people using the "wrong" voice introduce errors? Or is apple smart enough to filter users by geography too?

 

[Zcott]

I speak with a northern Irish voice and found the US Siri voice pretty accurate for recognition. Annoyingly, I found the turn by turn directions were read in the British voice, regardless of the Siri settings.

 

[Comeagain?]

Choosing the voice also helps her decide (like you noticed) how to interpret some words. There is no (non-jailbreak) way to make Siri speak in one language, and listen in another though.

 

[el3ktro]

Choosing the voice also helps her decide (like you noticed) how to interpret some words. There is no (non-jailbreak) way to make Siri speak in one language, and listen in another though.

This sucks! I'm German but have set my iPhone (and all my devices) to English. You can set Siri to German, so I can control my iPhone in German. But for example when using turn-by-turn, it uses English speech, which sucks because German street names sound just wrong when pronounced the English way.

The worst part is when you have an international music library. When trying to play a song from a band with an English name, I have to pronounce the name as if it was a German name - which also sounds very, very wrong.

To sum it up: As of today, voice recognition and speech has lots of problems for people who use multiple languages frequently.

 

[jackal123uk]

The worst part is when you have an international music library. When trying to play a song from a band with an English name, I have to pronounce the name as if it was a German name - which also sounds very, very wrong.

That's something I hadn't even considered - seems things are worse than I originally thought.

Although, at least with the music argument, it's more likely to be addressed by Apple than just users wanting more customisation of Siri...