So why does Siri seem so dumb? Why are its talents so limited? Why does it stumble so often? When was the last time Siri delighted you with a satisfying and surprising answer or action?
For me, at least, and for many people I know, it’s been years. Siri’s huge promise has been shrunk to just making voice calls and sending messages to contacts, and maybe getting the weather, using voice commands. Some users find it a reliable way to set timers, alarms, notes and reminders, or to find restaurants. But many of these tasks could be done with the crude, pre-Siri voice-command features on the iPhone and other phones, albeit in a more clumsy way.
There are many times when I disagree with Walt on his tech opinions, but I’ve had my own issues with Siri not being able to give me answers to seemingly easy questions. I’ve asked Siri about sports scores or upcoming games and, in some cases, the answers are completely off the rails. I still try once in a while, but most times, I just don’t bother.
But I suspect that people don’t ask those questions because, after trying a time or two and getting no answers or wrong answers, they just give up on Siri.
This is another good point. I can use Siri accurately to set a timer and play some music. Most other things, I just type the question into Google. Recently when I press the Siri button on my iPhone, it immediately says “Sorry, I’m not sure what you said,” while I’m still speaking. Again, I just type my question into Google.
I Thought it was just me..
Siri really is promises broken.
It does a few things well, many things not so well, and the vast majority of things not at all.
I too have the same problem with the “Sorry, I’m not sure what you said,” while I’m still speaking.
I find it easier to use dictation into a google search.
Siri on the desktop is also a huge waste of time. The problem is when it does some things well, you expect other things. When it doesn’t deliver you give up
I’ll add my voice to the chorus. What’s maddening about Siri (as with so many other network-based Apple things) is the inconsistency. I could look past the voice recognition stuff (hey, that’s hard to do, and even Echo isn’t as good at it in my extensive experience as people say it is). I could look past Siri not knowing a piece of information.
But when it comes to the most basic functions, Siri doesn’t even get it right half of the time. “Remind me about this email at 9 pm” — on Mac or on the phone, that will work maybe one in ten times. The other times, Siri sets a Reminder about “this email” without linking to the email.
And yes, it’s embarrassingly difficult to invoke. I used to just hold down the Home button until I was done talking, but even when I do that, Siri these days doesn’t seem to understand when to activate.
This is an incredibly poor implementation. Which goes along with the incredibly poor implementation of Handoff, AirDrop, and Universal Clipboard. They just don’t work. Amazingly, I’ve had pretty good luck with unlocking with the Apple Watch, and all accounts seem to indicate the new AirPods pair seamlessly, but man. Apple does not do connecting/network well at all.
I haven’t had similar issues. If Siri doesn’t know the answer, gives me a web search. My complaints though are:
It knows nowhere near enough.
If you go to the first web link, hard to get back to list Siri gave.
It has no context awareness whatsoever. Ask it about a game, then when the next game is, it has no idea.
Why type your question into Google? You could use Dictation as a compromise.
This may be an almost insurmountable problem for Apple. Siri needed more data to be more accurate, but the early data gathering failed to reveal improvements quickly enough (again Apple’s lack of understanding of services over products). If people quit asking the questions, Apple doesn’t get the data, hence there are probably many areas that Siri could be doing better, but can’t. Siri’s improvements need to be near real time as data is aggregated, not iterative like iOS upgrades. It is a hole they have dug themselves where the Siri brand is damaged. When does Siri make the news? In laughable moments.
And why use G _ _ _ le anyway when DuckDuckGo is around??!!!
Siri is annoying and a pointless feature. I never use it.
Not being able to get back to Siri results is a major obstacle.
“Hey Siri, ask the Google app a question for me.”
Jim, you don’t have to type your question to use Google.
Asking Siri to play my top rated music always ends in frustration.
The last time it tickled me was yesterday. I was listening to an audiobook while I drove. The guy used a word I didn’t know. I triggered Siri and said “Define X”, and it gave me the definition. I think the word was something like “pusillanimous”, so I was pretty tickled it got the word right in the first place, and then it gave me the definition. That was pretty fun. I’ve also been happy with its skill at reading messages to me when I’m driving.
Impossible to set an alarm for some time in the 4 o’clock hour. Just ask Siri “Set my alarm 4:30am”. Siri responds “Set the alarm for when today”. I shouldn’t have to ask Siri “Set my alarm for 4:30am.” Even the basic things that work most of the time have their oddities.
Me too. It has been driving me insane. I was ranting to my wife about it last weekend. “How is this supposed to even work!?, what is the bloody point!?” etc. She wasn’t interested, as she never tried using it in the first place.
It’s because I think they changed how it works.
Previously, you could invoke Siri with the long hold, release when you got the ding-sound prompt, and speak. Siri would process what you were saying until it detected silence and then go through with the request.
Now, when you invoke Siri using this method, you need to hold the home button until you are done speaking. If you just long hold until you get the prompt and release, Siri won’t hear anything (because you stopped holding before you started speaking) and hence it says it can’t hear what you said. Maybe the reason they changed it is because with this method there is no lag after you are done speaking. Siri knows exactly when to stop listening and can process the request right away. It took me a little bit to get used to, and I’m not sure it’s any better, but that’s how it goes.
As far as I know there is no setting to change this behavior, but I could be wrong.
I only ever use Siri to set timers anyways.
Siri not only is the worst of the so-called digital assistants, it is also the most limiting, least capable of any off them. Most of the time it can’t get out of its own way.
In Sierra, it is absolute garbage except for finding a file on your own machine. It’s usually faster to type a spotlight search.
This article really strikes a chord with me. All of this talk about Advanced Machine Learning, Differential Privacy, AR, and Deep Learning…..and yet Apple can’t even get the basics right with simple Siri requests. Hell, my Mac can’t even connect to our corporate exchange server without application crashes, fans spinning at full blast, and data problems.
Unlike Google, Amazon, and Facebook, Apple DOES NOT track everything that you do or write on your iOS devices!
Having all of your personal data, gives advertising data collection companies like Google a huge database to work from, with the ability to focus its answers more directly to your wants and needs.
That is NOT to say that Siri will not be able to achieve the same level of AI. Only that it is more difficult, and will take Apple longer to do it WITHOUT invading your privacy.
Siri’s capabilities have grown since it was first introduced, albeit not as rapidly as Google’s. And it will continue to grow.
But given the trade off for using Google’s services, I am happy to continue using Siri’s AI, even if it has not yet reached par on features with its competition.
The problem is that sometimes it still works the ‘old way’. Briefly hold the button to invoke Siri, let go, speak, then Siri answers. If Apple changed they way they wanted you to interact with Siri there should have been some announcement or notification and it should behave consistently.
I find now the best way to invoke Siri (the handful of times I use it) is to use the ‘hey Siri’ voice command.
I’d like to limit that by saying that it’s worthless for finding your files on external drives. So it doesn’t even get that fully right.
I’m so glad Walt took issue on this. Apple has been slept on SIRI for too long. We want more intelligent and more proactive SIRI and we want it now. In fact we want Apple softwares to be more intelligent and proactive (I’m looking at you Maps)
I’m on iOS 10 and it still works the old way for me and I use it all the time. This is the first I’ve heard about having to hold the button until you are finished speaking.
I’m a little surprised there are so many people on the Siri hate train. It’s been working well for me. Almost my entire house is Hue lights and I use Siri to turn lights on and off, change scenes and dim lights constantly and its accuracy is near 100%. My Echo doesn’t do near as well.
actually i just tested it and both styles of interaction work.
I sometimes use Siri to play music and I instantly regret it. Whenever I say “Play”, it hears “Today”!
English is my second language and I admit my accent is not the best but I’ve almost never had any problem with Youtube voice search. Even when saying words that are not in dictionary or hard to say ( Like Bioshock, Hearthstone and … )
I too have the intrupt issue. Very annoying.
There is a bigger picture here that the likes of Mossberg is missing. Because of Siri, etc., tech pundits are falling prey to the illusion that assistants are where AI is most important. Not in the least. Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft are all baking AI into their operating systems and infrastructures. Siri is behind in trivial ways. But Google does not have a significant lead where AI really counts.
I have a feeling Siri is actually getting worse. It doesn’t understand completely obvious things and i have mostly given up using it.
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The problem with Siri (and other things Apple these days) is that Apple over promised and under delivered and as Gruber and others have said, once you start running into walls, you give up and are reluctant to try again.
An alternative, and what Apple should have done from the beginning, is to limit Siri’s use to smaller domains. It’s still not perfect but its a lot better.
When cooking with hands full or dirty, using Siri to set a timer is incredibly useful and I use it like this daily. I also use it to make calls in my truck so I can keep my eyes on the road and for the most part, it works flawlessly both through the truck’s (stupid) “Entune” UI and on its own.
I use Siri daily but in very limited ways and it’s quite useful when used this way.
I remember the Knowledge Navigator days and while Siri isn’t “Bow Tie” it’s far better than Talking Moose (that was a joke).
I think the issue isn’t that Siri “seems so dumb”; the issue is that most people don’t use anything beyond texting, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.
I know this is anecdotal, but I see an astounding number of people who do NOT use touch ID on their phone. They tap in their 4 digit passcode EVERY time they unlock their phone. When I ask why, the reply is along the lines of “Oh, I don’t know how to do that”.
So what Mossberg is saying might be true, it doesn’t matter because most non-tech people don’t even attempt to use Siri. When was the last time you were out anywhere and saw someone using Siri? I can’t recall any (again, this is all anecdotal, but I think it speaks to a larger picture).
To put it politely, Siri is retarded.
Siri needs no data… Siri needs some logic.
maybe the Mac is on the domain?
Apple does not need to track anything – yet they could improve the logic of the code and UI.
There are really a couple of classes of things that they need to fix:
1) Voice interaction. Like others here I’ve had trouble with pressing the button then having her cut me off while I’m talking. She needs to be far more tolerant here. I shouldn’t have t start within 1 second, nor should I have her cut me off as Im talking.
2) Understanding me. I was in Portland earlier today and wanted to get a quick burger on the way out of town. There’s a local chain called Burgerville. I asked “where’s the nearest Burgerville?” and she repeatedly searched for Bergerville.
3) Local context in both time and space. By ‘in time’ I mean this – I was staying at a Comfort Inn for a trip. When I asked for directions to the Comfort Inn, she returned a list of them and asked me to tap the right one. Fine. But I asked the next day and she asked the same question as if she hadn’t just directed me to one the night before. In space, I mean that a search for burgerville or even Bergerville in Portland should give me the restaurants. In Seattle or another city, perhaps not…. but the chain is all over Oregon and Siri should show awareness of that.