Why does Apple get a free pass with Siri?

[Oppressed]

You are missing several points. One of which is that AI is not about searching for keywords, but about understanding context between statements. If your first question was "Do I need a raincoat today" and it said "no rain in the forecast" and you followed with "what about in (insert city here)" it would know that you are asking about weather conditions, specifically rain, in that location. There was not a single keyword in "What about (insert city here)" at all, but due to AI it understands the concept of what is being said. Something that is not available on ANY other platform.

Apple did not invent voice command system, and voice command systems has been on every device forever, but having AI built into them with superior voice recognition is a first.

Or just watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHoukZpMhDE

TellMe unfortunately is not in beta either.

I do have to agree that the server problems are unacceptable and Steve would have had a WTF discussion with his team about it.

 

[rockyroad55]

Apple does release the 4S ads with iCloud and the camera as a main selling point too.

 

[bubulindo]

I think that it is impossible for Apple to test Siri internally in a way that would be enough to call it a finished product.

First Siri is not just the software in the iPhone, it's the servers back at Apple. And those need to be tested with loads of different requests, etc...

Plus, I'm quite sure that all this usage might be analyzed to make it even better later on and maybe make it aware of different accents and dialects.

 

[iBlue]

I think that it is impossible for Apple to test Siri internally in a way that would be enough to call it a finished product.

First Siri is not just the software in the iPhone, it's the servers back at Apple. And those need to be tested with loads of different requests, etc...

Plus, I'm quite sure that all this usage might be analyzed to make it even better later on and maybe make it aware of different accents and dialects.

The average user doesn't give a flying fart about the specifics behind what makes tech work. It simply needs to just work... Apple's very basis for popularity.

 

[Blakey.]

I like Siri for the most part. It makes it much easier to change the song while driving so I don't have to wait for a red light. My biggest problem with it is that it seems to default to the remixes of songs I want to play as opposed to the original versions. The only way I can seem to make it stop doing that is by saying "play X song by Y artist" as opposed to just saying "play X song." It's not a big deal, but it would be nice if it didn't default to the remixes. It also sometimes doesn't catch what I'm saying, but no voice recognition is perfect and it does a great job typically.

All that said, it should definitely be better if that is the main selling point going from a 4 to a 4S. I want it to be more integrated with apps and other parts of the phone. "Play X song on Spotify." "Pull up Z site on Safari." "Turn off/on bluetooth/wifi." Things of that nature.

 

[GoCubsGo]

Again, context is everything. You must understand that at the end of the day, you are posting in a forum frequented mostly by apple supporters. If you expect your posts to be taken seriously, then you will need to phrase your message in a manner that will not turn them off.

Very often, it is not what you say, but how you say it.

I think it's unfair to dictate how someone is to post if their post is going to be against Apple. Regardless of forum, if a population of the member base can't handle an opposing view every so often then perhaps it is the population of members who yell "troll" at first sighting that need to step off. I don't get why people need to figure out ways to write something against Apple so that it appeals to the true fanboys. If you need to be coddled then call your parents because they'll likely give all the coddling one needs.

As I read the OP's post in this thread I am not struck with sarcasm from the OP. He/she seems to be asking a fairly valid question. His thread title doesn't mimic that of some dumbass who posts all caps and an over abundance of exclamation points. Nothing about the OP reads as sarcasm and trolling except that he just joined. The valid question is why does Apple get away with touting a new feature but asking for forgiveness when it fails by saying it is in the BETA stages? To me BETA means a limited and fairly controlled group of people have the opportunity to test the software. They're to report back what isn't working. Siri goes down and no one knows why. If you think I'm FOS then search the forums. Just yesterday without reason Siri went down and by 10 AM I had forgotten it was "down" and used it. Low and behold it worked. I think naming something BETA after having ample time to test is a cop-out.

 

[ericrwalker]

Siri is not perfect, but for being in beta it's way better than Microsoft's finished product TellMe.

http://youtu.be/SHoukZpMhDE

 

[BearerOBadNews]

As I read the OP's post in this thread I am not struck with sarcasm from the OP. He/she seems to be asking a fairly valid question. His thread title doesn't mimic that of some dumbass who posts all caps and an over abundance of exclamation points. Nothing about the OP reads as sarcasm and trolling except that he just joined. The valid question is why does Apple get away with touting a new feature but asking for forgiveness when it fails by saying it is in the BETA stages? To me BETA means a limited and fairly controlled group of people have the opportunity to test the software. They're to report back what isn't working. Siri goes down and no one knows why. If you think I'm FOS then search the forums. Just yesterday without reason Siri went down and by 10 AM I had forgotten it was "down" and used it. Low and behold it worked. I think naming something BETA after having ample time to test is a cop-out.

Very well said. It's been my experience that a beta means the same thing that you just stated. However, in this case Siri was released for general public consumption. If it's truly a beta then it shouldn't be released in that way, or at least make it very clear that it is indeed a beta so people are a bit more aware. I just think we need to use the same measuring stick. We tell other people we like our iphones because they "just work", but then when Siri has a problem and isn't "just working" we throw out the "it's a beta" line. It just seems to me that there needs to be some consistency in our expectations. If Apple wants to release beta software that's fine, just don't tout it as the major selling point of a device.

----------

Siri is not perfect, but for being in beta it's way better than Microsoft's finished product TellMe.

http://youtu.be/SHoukZpMhDE

I'm not really interested in comparing it to what other platforms have just to attempt to validate Siri. My point is that regardless of what the competition is doing, Siri is beta software. And while I think Siri is a good product, it does show it's "beta-ness" if you will.

 

[SR45]

Because people still understand how great of a product it is, and how much more polished/solid it is than competitors.

If there was an option existing that was 10x better already than people would be like "why didn't they use X".

Instead they see this product that does it better than what's out there and in most cases works fine. Plus Apple has announced more Siri integration, updates, etc.

Doesn't hurt they acknowledge it's beta as well.

Ya, right !

No audio when calling or receiving a call:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3404857?start=0&tstart=0

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3048845?start=0&tstart=0

https://discussions.apple.com/message/16797945#16797945

Major static issue thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3393647?start=0&tstart=0

 

[GoCubsGo]

As for the major selling point, someone else refuted that and said that iCloud and the new camera as selling points and while this is also true, there is a commercial dedicated to Siri. The average iPhone owner wouldn't know that it was in beta and probably wouldn't even know it after they buy the phone. My entire family has iPhones and none of them, even the most tech-savvy kid has any idea that Siri is in beta stages. His thought is that sometimes it works and sometimes it calls his aunt at 3 am when he's trying to play a certain music album.

One more thing folks, sometimes a newbie will come here and post something that is truly a troll post. There is a way to really set those posts apart from what the OP has done here. More importantly, would you rather a "newbie" come here and post a valid question that could lead to a nice debate over what is truly considered beta for the masses and beta for a select group of people or would you prefer that newbie to be a total Delta Bravo every chance he or she gets? I know what my vote would be.

 

[ericrwalker]

I'm not really interested in comparing it to what other platforms have just to attempt to validate Siri. My point is that regardless of what the competition is doing, Siri is beta software. And while I think Siri is a good product, it does show it's "beta-ness" if you will.

OK, my point was that siri is light years ahead of the rest, and yet it's in beta. I doesn't always understand everything. yet it won't be perfect until I can tell siri to open up angry birds and beat all levels with 3 stars for me.

My wife is Japanese, and siri doesn't understand anything she says in English. I'd like to see siri understand Japanese here in the the USA. Or at least understand her accent.

 

[VulchR]

Why Apple gets away with calling Siri a beta: You need to think of its performance not in terms of f(x) but in terms of d(x).

And, by the way, no doubt Apple is compiling a large data base of requests so that it can have an algorithm learn which ones were interpreted correctly and which were not. Over the long run I have no doubt that Siri will learn using such AI algorithms, so perhaps 'beta' would be better expressed as 'young'.

 

[b24pgg]

While it's true Siri has flaws, in many instances it works better than what others have to offer.

Not even close to being true for me.

I admit this is just my experience so it may not apply to everyone, but the two year old Google Voice Search on my Motorola Droid works WAY better than Siri.

Google Voice Search understands me ~80% of the time while Siri gets things wrong ~80% of the time...and that is after I spent time adding in phonetic pronunciations and relationships.

Considering Siri was one of ~3 changes between the iPhone 4 and the 4S and considering how much they're advertising it, Apple really should have taken it out of beta first.

Instead, Siri is arguably the biggest failure in the history of Apple.

----------

Why Apple gets away with calling Siri a beta...

They don't get away with it from my perspective. I think it's embarrassing for Apple that they tout a product so much and yet it works so poorly. To sell a beta product to the general public and then use us as their algorithm-building guinea pig is absurd.

Apple really dropped the ball with Siri and this really tarnishes their whole "it just works" mantra.

 

[bubulindo]

The average user doesn't give a flying fart about the specifics behind what makes tech work. It simply needs to just work... Apple's very basis for popularity.

It 'just' works on my end. When it fails I'm either asking for directions outside the US or saying things that aren't English.
Even still, yesterday I managed to call through Siri and Indian friend of mine. And his name is not simple.

 

[Oppressed]

Not even close to being true for me.

I admit this is just my experience so it may not apply to everyone, but the two year old Google Voice Search on my Motorola Droid works WAY better than Siri.

Google Voice Search understands me ~80% of the time while Siri gets things wrong ~80% of the time...and that is after I spent time adding in phonetic pronunciations and relationships.

Considering Siri was one of ~3 changes between the iPhone 4 and the 4S and considering how much they're advertising it, Apple really should have taken it out of beta first.

Instead, Siri is arguably the biggest failure in the history of Apple.

----------


They don't get away with it from my perspective. I think it's embarrassing for Apple that they tout a product so much and yet it works so poorly. To sell a beta product to the general public and then use us as their algorithm-building guinea pig is absurd.

Apple really dropped the ball with Siri and this really tarnishes their whole "it just works" mantra.

Your personal experience does not indicate, by any stretch of the imagination, the experiences of the masses. Therefore to deem it as "arguably the biggest failure in the history of Apple" is pretty presumptuous if your sample size for your test is one.

Just because you may speak in absolutes does not make you correct.

 

[VulchR]

....
Apple really dropped the ball with Siri and this really tarnishes their whole "it just works" mantra.

I've had few problems with it, and the few I had seemed to be network problems not misunderstandings. Obviously you expect far more from Siri than I, but I have no doubt that by the time Apple describes Siri as being a final release, Sirri will 'just work' (and you, I and others who used Siri during the beta will have contributed valuable data to aid Siri's development).

 

[b24pgg]

Your personal experience does not indicate, by any stretch of the imagination, the experiences of the masses.

Yeah, I said that:

I admit this is just my experience so it may not apply to everyone

Of course it's not just me who is having problems with Siri. I agree it's impossible to generalize the experience of the masses, but judging by the comments about Siri on the forums, there are definitely more people singing tunes of frustration than of praise.

I have no doubt that by the time Apple describes Siri as being a final release, Sirri will 'just work'

I hope you're right. But Apple should have waited to release Siri until then.

 

[Oppressed]

Of course it's not just me who is having problems with Siri. I agree it's impossible to generalize the experience of the masses, but judging by the comments about Siri on the forums, there are definitely more people singing tunes of frustration than of praise.

The amount of people who post on these forums represent such a small amount of people that again it would be impossible to gage the experiences of the millions of people who do use it. Also lets be honest here, people mainly come to these forums to complain, and _vary rarely_ do people post positive messages. This may skew your view a little.

 

[urkel]

Why is it when anyone has an issue with the way Siri works, the response they receive is "it's a Beta"? Why does Apple get a pass for releasing Beta software and then touting it as their main selling point? If this happened on another platform like Android, the people here would have skewered them, saying that they just threw something out there, or that once again an incomplete product was rushed out, or that it "lacks polish". While is Apple allowed to release products that aren't finished (even though they use it as a major selling point)? Why does apple get a free pass here?

First off, I absolutely LOVE Siri and use it daily. But as a CONSUMER I do find all this excuse making to be hypocritical. Siri IS amazing, Sire IS the future, but if its really just a Beta product then why restrict it from running on the iPhone 4 or iPad? If it's Beta then just let everyone "try" it and once the final release is ready then start making restrictions based on this Beta "testing".

 

[jamesryanbell]

While it's true Siri has flaws, in many instances it works better than what others have to offer.

Apple could have called it finished product. They didn't. Not a big deal, if you ask me.

This.

I use it every day, and I very rarely have problems with it.

 

[Bernard SG]

Wirelessly posted (IPod Touch 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

This thread beats everything I've seen on MacRumors in terms of crass dumbness.
Not a mean feat.
Congrats OP.

 

[vitzr]

As you get to know the Apple community better, you'll notice Apple usually gets a pass on anything that doesn't "Just Work".

Hypocrisy is alive and well in this arena

You'll get used to it, then if you have a good sense of humor you'll find it rather humorous. There's lots of fun reading how the various users justify and rationalize Apple screw ups. They're quite creative in their defense of the almighty Apple.

 

[VulchR]

....
Hypocrisy is alive and well in this arena ...

We would we be if it weren't for those who remind us that a given group of human beings occasionally engage in hypocrisy?

 

[s15119]

Why is it when anyone has an issue with the way Siri works, the response they receive is "it's a Beta"?

because it's a beta.

 

[Jordan921]

I've had Siri work for me most if not all the time. I'm in no way making an excuse for Siri. Yes for some people it doesn't work for them. We'll just have to wait for an update to Siri to see if the issues are fixed and finally the beta tag can be removed.