One of my favorite habits is strolling downstairs in the morning, and asking Siri to play some music while I make coffee, do my morning routine.
Yesterday, I asked Siri to play one of my favorite albums, Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert. It’s a terrific morning album and, even though it came out back in 1975, it sounds terrific on HomePod. It’s all about the production.
The problem here is getting Siri to play this album. I started with:
Hey Siri, play the Keith Jarrett album The Köln Concert.
Siri’s response:
Sorry, I couldn’t find Keith Jarrett.
But if I say:
Hey Siri, play Keith Jarrett
Siri does her magic and plays all manner of Keith Jarrett.
Now, you might think this is a complaint about Siri’s ability to parse my spoken words. Not at all. I find Siri to be excellent at translating spoken word to text.
Instead, this is about Siri taking the next leap towards understanding and collaboration. If I asked a friend to play Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert and my friend did not understand what I meant, there’d be a couple of important points of interaction:
- Did my friend know Keith Jarrett?
- Did they understand the reference to the album The Köln Concert?
- Does my friend have access to that album?
If it was a friend, I could follow up with some of these questions, and my friend could ask me questions right back. Maybe something like:
- Hey friend, play the Keith Jarrett album The Köln Concert.
- Sorry, I can’t do that.
- Why not?
- I know who Keith Jarrett is, but I don’t understand The Köln Concert.
- Let me spell that out for you: K-O-L-N C-O-N-C-E-R-T.
- Did you mean, The Köln Concert?
- Yup, that’s the one. Go ahead and play it.
Spelling aside, I see the basic ability to go back and forth as a critical next step for Siri and, especially for HomePod Siri. And I think homing in on what music you want to play is a perfect sandbox for Siri to play and learn in.
The Apple Music domain is relatively limited. Typically, you ask for a song, an album, or an artist. The back and forth to help you home in on the music you’re seeking is relatively simple. I don’t mean to minimize the effort involved in taking that next step. Programming is hard, especially when you are trying to build something that millions of people will use.
But this might be an excellent place to start. And a bit of back and forth to help find a specific piece of music would, in my mind, greatly enhance the HomePod experience.
You’re doing better than me, I can’t even get it to play Keith Jarrett.
Hey Siri, play my morning playlist.
Or “K-O-L-N concert”… intuitively, I’d expect to be able to do that.
“Yesterday, I asked Siri to play one of my favorite albums, Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert.”
Well, there’s your problem. Siri’s obviously partial to Pat Metheny.
“Hey Siri, Play the Eels”
“OK, Here’s the Eagles”
Every damn time.
I have an app called Jira installed on my iOS devices – I need it for work. Anything even close to “Jira” like Jarrett gets turned into “I can’t find any music matching Keith Jira”.
Siri let me down again today as Siri lets me down most days. Siri inset just limited, it is unaware at any level.
Almost useless except for making appointments and setting timers.
Just try to get Siri to play your favorite Beethoven piece.
Part of the problem with Siri is with Apple’s .m4a or any MP3 for that matter. The classifications for ‘classical’ music are too limited on this format. Then add Siri’s inability to differentiate between Karajan’s Beethoven’s 5th Symphony and Maazel’s version. Then there’s Apple Music’s horribly limited search functionality. What you have is a Siri ‘device’ that will give you much agony if your only using Siri as your sole interface and Siri is primarily how Apple is marketing the HomePod.
Went into the Apple Store yesterday. Asked to test HomePod with an iPhone. Was told not possible since it’s not paired with any iPhone and it only uses Siri. Spent 30 minutes trying to get Siri to play the correct version of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony with no success. I finally gave up and left.
Nice. I’d hate to find out what happens if I ask for “Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.”
Excellent choice of music.
Another thing I miss sorely is the lack of logical operators to make more complex requeste. e.g.: “Turn off all lights except light x”. “Set the Volume to 30% and resume playing”…
Sounds easier than going back and forth, but must be pretty hard in reality, or one of the big voice assistants would already do that.
Generally I think Siri isn’t great with albums. I find it does much better with artists, songs (even a live version) and playlists. It is annoying when I want to play an album. I can’t even ask it to list Keith Jarrett albums and then choose 1.
Its a bit of a hack, but 1 way round it is to create a new playlist containing just the album. Name the playlist something that will be easy to get Siri to understand and you should be good. I’ve done this for a few albums.
Near Philadelphia, we have to say “Play the Iggles.” 🙂 That would be hilarious if it were true!
This.
This concept would probably eliminate a significant amount of frustration using Siri. Instead of it flat-out failing, it would be an easily evolving process to get to where you want.
I couldn’t find ‘Nusrat fat to Ally Colynn’.
[sad walk]
My experience:
“Hey Siri, play {album} by {artist}.”
Plays something totally different from Apple Music.
“Hey Siri, play {album}.”
No dice.
“Hey Siri, play {artist}{album}.”
Nope.
Total fail here.
This is too much work. When you say “Keith Jarrett”, it should limit the domain and match the other thing you say to “The Koln Concert”. Even if it doesn’t have high confidence that that’s what you said, if it’s the closest match among Keith Jarrett music, it should play that. BTW, Google Home handles this correctly.