I would really wish for a timer assistant. When I'm cooking in the kitchen with both of my hands occupied, I could just ask it to set timers.
Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
31–40 of 72 posts
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#32OK Google, when does the supermarket XXX in city YYY open today?
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#33I would really wish for a timer assistant. When I'm cooking in the kitchen with both of my hands occupied, I could just ask it to set timers.
You already can. Try it out: "Hey Siri, set a timer for 5 minutes"
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#34I would really wish for a timer assistant. When I'm cooking in the kitchen with both of my hands occupied, I could just ask it to set timers.
Which one doesn't have that? That's the one feature I see people consistently mention that they love about their digital assistants.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#35To be usable with non-mainstream language names. Yes, I can speak in English with it but I can't rename people/places. Which means I can't mail/message/reference them which is, to me, most exciting current use case.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#36I wish they could control laser cutters and 3D printers. It would make my job a heck of a lot easier.
"Start printing the chess set in red and green on printer #2"
It would be great if I could also use them for design.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#37I'd be happy if Siri were finally able to understand a proper sentence at least most of the time. That would be helpful.
It's odd that you still can't directly type to Siri, even on the Mac. (You can indirectly type by 'editing' a previous voice query). The compeitors: Cortana accepts both voice and text input. Google Now/Allo does too (although the new Assistant in the Pixel is only voice though). Alexa is only voice.
If you click on your incorrect voice command, Siri has a "tap to edit" link, where you can correct in text and re-execute the command.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#38I'd like reminders to work better on Siri. It puts them in this reminder app and they never seem to go away until I manuly delete them.
Also geofencing reminders seem to kill my battery and constantly make the location icon show up.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#39I really wish I could talk to Siri in public without feeling silly.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#40I'd be happy if Siri were finally able to understand a proper sentence at least most of the time. That would be helpful.
It's odd that you still can't directly type to Siri, even on the Mac. (You can indirectly type by 'editing' a previous voice query). The compeitors: Cortana accepts both voice and text input. Google Now/Allo does too (although the new Assistant in the Pixel is only voice though). Alexa is only voice.
This is probably the biggest improvement to Siri they could make right now. The ability to enter commands to a natural language command line could be really convenient.