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How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

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Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#231

Post by nagVenkat »

Reason077 wrote: post #187
oarsinsync wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cant speak for the other person, but as someone who's used iPhones exclusively since the original, Siri makes mistakes with sufficient frequency that it's subjectively just bad. I can't quantify what percentage of requests fail to be understood correctly, but it's sufficiently high that the frequency is annoying. It's even worse when using the Apple Watch (Series 3). Unexpectedly, this can sometimes be a positive too…

I often want to set a timer for exactly 50 minutes so I know when my laundry is done. But siri always interprets "Fifty" as "Fifteen". Pretty much every single time, it always makes the same mistake, no matter how clearly or slowly I try to pronounce it. I have to say "Hey Siri, set a timer for five zero minutes" to get it to pick it up accurately.

Do you have any accent? By that I mean are you a second language English speaker? I just presumed that it couldn’t understand my accent heavy speeech.

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#232

Post by atonse »

jbg_ wrote: post #198
jd20 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an Ike's Sandwiches like literally 30 feet from my office in San Jose, and I always like to ask Siri when it closes. To this day, I've probably tried on a dozen occasions and it has never once gotten it right. I'm a native English speaker with no accent. I tried again just now, this is what I got: Me: "What time does Ike's sandwich close?" Siri heard: "What time does Eichs sandwich close" Siri responded: "Hmm…

OT but what do you mean by "English speaker with no accent"? Clearly every person has an accent, and every system that understands language must be able to understand the various accents that people have.

In the US, people say "no accent" to mean what the rest of the world calls an American Accent (even though American Accents change with region, just like any country). It's a very US-centric way of looking at things, but means no harm.

I've lived here in the US for 25 years and I notice the phrase every single time. :-)

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#233

Post by kirykl »

scarface74 wrote: post #121
kirykl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what really hurts Apple is the lack of the “reality distortion field” at keynotes and media events. Those set the tone for products and the company with users and Apple hasn’t been nearly as effective at this without him.

Apple's revenues, profits, and market cap have increased dramatically since 2011. How else do you measure effectiveness?

How much of that is due to inertia ?

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#234

Post by konradb »

photojosh wrote: post #139
phxrsg wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siri can do home automation with HomeKit and it actually works really well. The disadvantage here is that HomeKit has less supported accessories because, as I understand it, it's less open/requires certification of the accessory. That said, for engineers in the crowd I know that I and others get around it by making a HomeKit RPi adapter for things that don't support it...

I recently got a certified smart lock, and it's been superb. Any communications outside my network are handled through Apple/HomeKit and I trust them a lot more than some random Chinese IoT supplier. > That said, for engineers in the crowd I know that I and others get around it by making a HomeKit RPi adapter for things that don't support it... Yep, they're using HomeBridge. [0] I'm planning on doing this for my gara…

Are you able to say what lock you got? Would be interested in getting a decent one.

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#235

Post by oarsinsync »

nagVenkat wrote: post #231
Reason077 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often want to set a timer for exactly 50 minutes so I know when my laundry is done. But siri always interprets "Fifty" as "Fifteen". Pretty much every single time, it always makes the same mistake, no matter how clearly or slowly I try to pronounce it. I have to say "Hey Siri, set a timer for five zero minutes" to get it to pick it up accurately.

Do you have any accent? By that I mean are you a second language English speaker? I just presumed that it couldn’t understand my accent heavy speeech.

Americans think I sound British. British think I sound American. Siri fails less often when set to British instead of American for me, but still fails too often regardless.

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#236

Post by ak217 »

sjwright wrote: post #160
tinus_hn wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siri may have stalled now but it definitely wasn’t a botched launch. And Apple maps may not work great in all cases but it did succeed in forcing Google to provide decent maps on iOS. Before Apple Maps the vector maps were an Android exclusive.

Apple Maps is like Bing: almost as good as the #1 service, but almost is not enough to make anyone care. Apple Maps is remarkably good today, doing nearly all of the important things well. Here in Australia, it's on par with Google Maps for driving (slightly worse for novel route planning, slightly better for guidance) and when travelling to major world cities I've found Apple Maps is frequently better than Google Ma…

In reality Google Maps is farther ahead of its competitors than most people realize.

Google Maps now provides wholly personalized points of interest and attention affordances in its UI. It's also well on its way to 3D scanning and annotating POIs in every structure in the world, including very large pedestrian-only interiors. It also has realtime transit and traffic feeds, and more pedestrian trails and venue detail than anyone else. All of these are areas where its competition is not just behind, but falling further behind. But the personalization combined with superior POI search really illustrates how Google's competitors don't even have the platform to properly conceptualize the type of product Google is building, much less build it.

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#237

Post by kerbalspacepro »

iDemonix wrote: post #207
Jdam wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it to set the alarm, a pretty basic task. Works in 6/10 cases. This is totally unacceptable in the age of “smart”.

Are you doing it wrong? I set my alarm every night with Siri in my 4-year old iPhone 6 and I can't recall ever having an issue...

In 2018, the only two ways you can do something that simple wrong, is by 1) not speaking English at all or 2) say something else completely.

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#238

Post by 72deluxe »

dagaci wrote: post #177

Siri: I've notice a massive slowdown in the speed of Siri and an actual deterioration in voice recognition (but I've just assumed that this is just part of the general deterioration of iOS) I would say that Siri has not only fallen behind but gone backwards. I'm still running an iPhone 5s ;) because i dont like the direction of Apple have taken certain things (and Android terrifies me with the sheer volume of persona…

Yes the data collection volume is pretty massive. I run a raspberry pi at home running pihole to block DNS requests and the amount of metrics and dialling home devices do is pretty staggering.

That being said, my Windows 10 and Apple devices all do a similar insane amount of dialling home all the time so I don't think it is unique to Android.

In fact, you should probably run O&O ShutUp10 on Windows to disable all the telemetry (does it really need to know how you're using your keyboard?????), GlassWire or NetLimiter (not tried them) and install Little Snitch for Mac (I use this and observe much dialling out).

A sad world we live in.

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#239

Post by mstade »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #185
viraptor wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Location “where is my sister?” How does this one work? Is it just an address lookup, or does it support some location sharing like Google maps?

Siri integrates with the "find my friends" app, so it's all current-location based. Quite swish.

In my family we call this the stalker app. It's very good for finding out where specifically where someone is, even in malls and other places you might not expect GPS location to work all that well. (Thanks surveil– I mean wifi!)

It is a system where you have to give permission for people to see your location, and you can revoke it at any time should you wish, but it's still real creepy. The good for us (knowing where the immediate family is at pretty much any time) outweighs the bad, but I wouldn't dream of sharing my location like this with a friend – even a very close one – let alone strangers.

Re: How Apple let Siri fall behind the Google Assistant and Alexa

#240

Post by Hippocrates »

Twisell wrote: post #28

Something always make me scratch my head. Is there any proof that actual people use and value Google and Amazon assistant more than Siri? Or is the leadership only designed by autoproclaimed experts and funky ad-hoc metrics? I totally confess that I use Siri for only 3 things: -Desactivating all wake up alarm during my morning poo -Setting timers while baking -Sending a « I’m coming » text to my loved one before ridi…

Agree completely. Siri works near perfectly for my basic uses: Alarms, timers, reminders, weather, stock prices, music, calls, texts etc. I concede that Google and Amazon's assistants are more advanced, if the measure of advanced is the number of gimmicky joke responses and Easter eggs they can say during a social gathering.
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