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Even Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future, new report says

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Re: Even Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future, new report says

#321

Post by thaumasiotes »

cubefox wrote: post #212
khazhoux wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Bach” is a word like any other, and unambiguous in English pronunciation.

There is no "English" here, it's a name of a concrete person which has only one correct pronunciation. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/De-Bach....

> it's a name of a concrete person which has only one correct pronunciation.

This is an insane standard. The [x] at the end of the German word doesn't exist in English; most English speakers wouldn't be able to pronounce it if they wanted to. When the demands you're making are literally impossible, the problem is you.

Re: Even Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future, new report says

#323

Post by highwaylights »

What bugs me the most about this is how fixable it is.

Apple is now at a point where even the oldest supported devices on their latest operating systems have either decent dedicated ML hardware or are Intel-based machines with enough compute power that they should really be able to do a much better job with inferencing locally (and the server component is irrelevant to local device capabilities anyway).

It should’ve been possible to bin Siri’s backend and rebuild something better from scratch by now. That Apple is swimming in money just makes things like this more jarring.

It’s honestly my greatest gripe with Apple as a software company. They put a lot of effort into polishing what they release but seemingly very little into maintaining it afterwards. macOS is the worst offender, where basic and fundamental things stay broken for years on end (settings not being applied after selection in the UI, permissions being set in the UI but not actually taking effect despite being set, continuity stopping working silently in FaceTime and iMessage. It’s gotten so bad I just accept that some former tentpole features no longer exist because they’ve become so broken and no-one cares to fix them).

Back to Siri though, it’s gotten substantially worse than when I used to use it on an iPhone 4S. That’s a decade plus of consistent regression while Google Assistant continues to progress. It’s so bad, and can’t be replaced, that I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a leading cause of people exiting the eco-system altogether.

Re: Even Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future, new report says

#324

Post by meling »

What is people’s experience with Tesla’s voice recognition system? I’ve previously used it to activate the windshield wipers, which worked. But recently I tried to get it to play music and various other things, none of which it was able to do… I was driving and haven’t had time to play around with it since.

Re: Even Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future, new report says

#325

Post by khazhoux »

nicky0 wrote: post #262
khazhoux wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The accurate pronunciation in German is irrelevant. Siri is always constrained to one language (Settings > General > Language & Region), and when set to English you get English pronunciations. Same way Siri understands the english “Los Angeles” even though the G sound is completely different from Spanish. The english IPA for Bach is straightforward.

You’re talking as if there is an anccepted standard English pronunciation of Bach. The only one I know is the German one which I would use when speaking English. Perhaps I would soften the ending.

My point is that there's nothing particularly special about this name of foreign origin, compared to any other word. Every word has lots of variations in how they're pronounced.

The audio clip the person posted was for a true German pronunciation, which happened to be very different than how 99% of English-speakers would say it.

Re: Even Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future, new report says

#326

Post by blitzar »

cubefox wrote: post #189
HDThoreaun wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"By the way" is alexa's entire business model. They sell these devices at a loss and don't require a subscription for the nlp so they can "by the way" you into buying random shit. I'm surprised they let you mute it at all, especially after devices lost $10 billion last year.

I wonder why they sell these things at a loss. Wouldn't they sell at cost?

I am not really sure why people buy into this. These devices cost next to nothing to make, the royalties to the tax haven holding co and the private jet fuel are thrown in to the "cost" as a write-off and a tax dodge.

Re: Even Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future, new report says

#328

Post by ETH_start »

highwaylights wrote: post #323

What bugs me the most about this is how fixable it is. Apple is now at a point where even the oldest supported devices on their latest operating systems have either decent dedicated ML hardware or are Intel-based machines with enough compute power that they should really be able to do a much better job with inferencing locally (and the server component is irrelevant to local device capabilities anyway). It should’ve…

Siri reveals the problem with deep integration using proprietary standards. A modular stack designed around interoperability and open standards makes it far easier to swap a subpar software service with a superior one. Conversely, deep integration using custom interfaces requires redesign of many stack components to switch to a different design principle for just one component.

Re: Even Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future, new report says

#329

Post by aembleton »

xvector wrote: post #289
el_benhameen wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their swype-style keyboard is an absolute joke—perhaps the most infuriating part of my iphone. I know that it’s easier to criticize than it is to implement, but my god, just a basic markov chain would yield more intelligible results than the shit it comes up with.

It's honestly a complete travesty. Strongly considering ditching my iPhone for the upcoming Pixel Fold or whatever it'll be called.

Can't you just change the keyboard on your iPhone?

Re: Even Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future, new report says

#330

Post by soup10 »

highwaylights wrote: post #323

What bugs me the most about this is how fixable it is. Apple is now at a point where even the oldest supported devices on their latest operating systems have either decent dedicated ML hardware or are Intel-based machines with enough compute power that they should really be able to do a much better job with inferencing locally (and the server component is irrelevant to local device capabilities anyway). It should’ve…

> That Apple is swimming in money just makes things like this more jarring.

This is a common theme. Big Tech Company X is rich therefore they should be able to do Y. But corporations don't really work that way, they build a monopoly around a few domains and then their organization is structured to maintain that monopoly. It's the exception, not the norm, for established companies to gain competency in a new domain, and it usually comes with an acquisition or a special initiative by senior management.

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