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Siri, What Time Is It in London?

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Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#271
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true for either Apple or Google or Facebook, all of which are determinedly global in their sales and marketing.

They’re also very weak examples of companies that do this. For starters, Apples localization is quite on point most of the time. Facebook and Google really don’t have many features at all that are territorially exclusive.

Tell that to their atrocious app store situation. Need an banking app for Japan AND one for the USA each only available on that country's store. Apple says F.U!

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#272
post #244

It's ridiculous how Siri is still this shitty. I have an 11 Pro and even on such an expensive phone I can't really trust it to do anything more advanced than set timers. Every few months I try to do something else and just get annoyed at how bad it is. Before lockdown I even had it disabled entirely because it would get activated randomly from time to time, even if nobody in the vicinity said anything remotely close…

I almost never use the "google assistant". However it has an habit of firing up while I'm driving listening to podcasts : "I didn't understand your command" (generally, at a annoyingly loud level, with that). I didn't ask you anything, you stupid. You've just misunderstood a sound coming out of the phone itself , where nobody said anything remotely related to "hey google" or "OK google". Puhlease.

I turn off as many settings for Assistant as I can, and disallow the Microphone permission to the "Google" app. That should help you out.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#273
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true for either Apple or Google or Facebook, all of which are determinedly global in their sales and marketing.

They’re also very weak examples of companies that do this. For starters, Apples localization is quite on point most of the time. Facebook and Google really don’t have many features at all that are territorially exclusive.

Really? Facebook Portal would be the poster example of this for me.

I am in the market for a video chat device usable for people in the age of 70+. This device is perfect.

There is no real reason to limit it to a region but they do. Plug adapters are easy to come by and one place I saw a spec which said 100-240V 50/60Hz for the power adapter. But marketing/shipping/support/multiple SKUs might want them to limit distribution. But they are not up-front about it.

And you do not figure out until you are ready to order.

It should be obvious to put a prominent note on the landing page that the product only is available in select locations. Especially for a global brand.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#274
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we please also take a moment to wish tiny inconveniences upon designers of applications which ignore my locale and present me with "11:06 AM" or worse, "04/05/2020"?

it’s %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z as God intended! (and i’m an american!)

Is it a joke?

Year should be in the first column.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#275

I get this problem all the time and I live in "the right" London so it is not just a "nearest London" thing. It is not just digital assistants, but so many other things like Google maps, e-commerce sites, address auto-completes etc seem to assume that I want the North American one with a population of 300k that no one knows about, not the one that everyone has heard of with a population of 9 million. I've always just…

Just to report that it isn't necessarily/solely cultural myopia at work here: I live in Ontario and have family in London, Ontario, and while visiting them with location services on have both asked for and googled "what is the temperature in London, Ontario" (notice that I said the region!), and gotten results for London England. I left angry feedback with Google over it once, but it's happened many times.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#276
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would get annoying very soon. If you look hard enough, almost any question is ambiguous. I think the best thing to do is to pick one interpretation, answer that, but make it clear which London you picked (“the time in London, England is 12:34”), and then, handle “no, the one in…” correctly. Falling back to “which one do you mean?” Should be the exception, as a voice assistent that can’t make that initial guess r…

> I think the best thing to do is to pick one interpretation, answer that, but make it clear which London you picked That’s actually the exact interaction you get with Siri today (I just checked): U: What time is it in London? S: It’s 7:09 AM in London, Canada U: No, London UK S: It’s 12:09 PM in London, England The only problem is she doesn’t really learn this for subsequent requests, although that is a different pr…

> The only problem is she doesn’t really learn this for subsequent requests, although that is a different problem IMO.

That's kind of the 'how do you take your tea?' problem, which I think really annoys users.

(context: the first or second time you make tea for someone, you ask milk/sugar etc. Ask it after that and they're going to think you're pretty rude)

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think almost everybody in European countries knows about AM/PM, but I certainly get confused by 11:59 AM vs 12:00 AM

I've never been able to keep 12 AM vs 12 PM straight in my head. If I have to put something on my calendar or set an alarm for that time, I always use 11:59 AM or PM. Is there a mnemonic or trick for remembering?

12 AM and 12 PM are only meaningful by some arbitrary convention, and I'm not sure if that's even very consistent.

I try always to use 12 noon and 12 midnight instead.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#278
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the absence of context there is no best answer. You need context to know why London, UK is much more likely to be the right London "without additional context".

> In the absence of context there is no best answer. sigh why do people always feel the need to redefine words? By any definition of the word, "best" is correct term to use here. Here's a few definitions of the word "best", please and in all honesty, tell me why the use is wrong given the following: • best: "In the most excellent or most suitable manner; with most advantage or success: as, he who runs best gets the p…

Yes, but that set of criteria to establish a metric is context.

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it’s %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z as God intended! (and i’m an american!)

Is it a joke? Year should be in the first column.

Agreed - really wish more people would use ISO date format: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

Re: Siri, What Time Is It in London?

#280
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can’t have 12:01AM being in the afternoon, so 12:00AM must be one minute before 12:01AM, so it is also dark.

It might go back to Anglo-Norman (Frenchish) language: Apres midi Post midi

It's usually held to be Latin: ante and post meridiem[1].

But surely the whole point is that midday itself is neither before nor after midday, while midnight is precisely equally both before and after?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12-hour_clock

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