Even Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future, new report says • Hacker News Board

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

#431

Post by kajecounterhack » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

0x6c6f6c wrote: post #163

throwaway_ab wrote: post #76

I use Siri to turn on/off voice control which lets me control my iPhone without touching it (it's a disability feature). When I no longer need voice control I use Siri to turn it off (I have my voice control set to label all actionable buttons on the screen so I like to turn it off when using my phone via touch.) I'm not visually impaired however I find voice control super useful when I want control of my phone and r…

This is a surprising testimonial. My wife switched from a Pixel to iPhone and has utterly hated Siri and voice assist on iOS to the point she'd rather just deal with her hand pain. And it's a lot of pain. I've listened to see how bad it can be at understanding her, and it's appalling.

I switched from a Pixel to iPhone and had to turn off Siri because the difference in quality is jarring. I'm also sad that I can't ask my Google Home to find my phone anymore, or use Google Assistant in the car with "Hey Google."

But camera that can take more than 3 pictures rapidly + iMessage + magnetic charging + airpod/iwatch support + build quality are ultimately just more important features to have on a device I use every day. I hate that getting these features right means that Apple can forever get the other features wrong.

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

#432

Post by scottshambaugh » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 5:17 PM UTC

epaga wrote: post #245

Siri is without a doubt in my mind the most embarrassing thing Apple has had on the market in the past 20 years. With ChatGPT it is now feeling like Siri the broken tricycle is being compared to a Lamborghini. Honestly I would have been concerned if Apple employees weren’t frustrated with Siri. Pretty sure they need to take Siri out to pasture and start some LLM-based project from scratch.

I got chatGPT hooked up to a voice interface on my iPhone [1], and this comparison is exactly what the difference feels like.

[1] https://theshamblog.com/chatgpt-on-an-iphone/

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

#433

Post by nanidin » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 5:24 PM UTC

Twisell wrote: post #278

nanidin wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday: “Hey Siri, watch a movie in the dark” “Ok setting scene watch a movie in the dark” Today: “Hey Siri, watch a movie in the dark” “I can’t find a movie called In the Dark.” I also had a very frustrating issue randomly start happening because one of my lights had the word “lamp” or “light” in it. Thankfully googling the symptoms found others with the same problem and a solution, but it was baffling as there h…

Well it's clearly better to use non-ambiguous keyword to solve that. Like my scene name equivalent to "watch a movie in the dark" was called "cinema". Another was called "sunset" for instance.

It worked for over a year before it became erratic. If it is problematic Apple should warn me in the UI. It worked again shortly after - making me think it is not deterministic.

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

#434

Post by RichardCA » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 5:55 PM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #233

jackvalentine wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take your point but really like the mirth of a man who died 30 years before audio recordings being represented by a hip hop version of one of his pieces! He never recorded a canonical version of anything!

He did lots of canonical midi-recordings on paper though.

Funny, my Android Auto playlist for "Bach" is actually Wendy Carlos, a CD rip of Switched-on Bach 2000, which she did on an early 90's Mac II using MIDI sequencing.

In general I find that 80's and 90's era CD's ripped directly to FLAC still sound really good.

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

#435

Post by falaki » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 6:04 PM UTC

As a former Apple employee working on Siri, it is safe to say many Apple employees hated Siri even 10 years ago. Many tried to introduce new ideas to improve it, but, at least while I was there, nothing changed.

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

#436

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 6:38 PM UTC

cubefox wrote: post #338

thaumasiotes wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So just because the "th" sound doesn't exist in many languages, like German, they should pronounce "Heath Ledger" or "Anthony Hopkins" or "The Beatles" incorrectly? That seems to me a way more "insane" standard. By the way, the Scottish are perfectly able to pronounce "Loch Ness", which has the same sound for "ch" as "Bach".

[deleted]

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

#437

Post by devilbunny » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 6:50 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #343

devilbunny wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just try their swiping. I use it. I don't like it. (I haven't found anything else that's much better, and that's with a fair amount of SwiftKey use; nothing beats now-dead Swype.) Routinely - routinely - I try to swipe out "and". Often, I get "abs" (I don't work out, let alone write about it), but the most common and bizarre one is "Abbas". The only Abbas I know is the Palestinian president, and I don't write about h…

I assume some users are using new names on a daily basis. If you run a plumbing business, you may never have texted Abbas before - but if Abbas asks you for a quote, you'll be doing it today. Although I agree that people write 'and' far more often. I assume they have some sort of special-case inclusion/handling for names in swipe dictionaries - it'd be embarrassing if your swipe keyboard recognised George and Donald…

But I'd just punch in the letters individually just as I would for any unusual word. Misinterpreting "and" is like how Swype used to put in "née" for "me". Look, maybe I'm not as precise as I should be, but one is a word that people use a couple of times a year, and the other a couple of times an hour.

And "Barack" isn't the most common spelling. I wouldn't expect it to know "Fillmore" either.

Shouldn't frequency of use matter? Why go to all this effort and not put some kind of weighting on its word choices?

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

#438

Post by dmonitor » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

empyrrhicist wrote: post #361

mardifoufs wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some very odd reason, swipe keyboard technology seems to have peaked around 2014, never to reach those heights again. I remember being amazed by how great swiping was, and after using it recently (it's not really great on gboard or samsung keyboard either, not bad but just meh) I was wondering if it was just rose tinted glass. But nope, I booted up my old nexus 5 with a normal gboard (not even swiftkey!) and it w…

Could it be related to screen size and finger mechanics?

I switched to an iphone mini and experienced a minor improvement in my typing accuracy, but it’s still pretty torturous compared to back in the day.

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

#439

Post by beerpls » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 7:12 PM UTC

Twisell wrote: post #271

beerpls wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Apple pumps more than a billion dollars into developing and marketing a virtual assistant which fails the vast majority of the time and you’re proud of it because it can set a timer by voice? I’m just going to say - i’m underwhelmed

He was referring to Google assistant. But I can second his point of view from a Siri user standpoint. I use it almost every day for two insignificant task, but yet it work and I use it everyday: - Shutting down the remaining alarm clocks (I'm really not a morning person) - Setting up timer when I cook At some point I also used it to control smart lights but I haven't set up the system again in my new flat. And I'm se…

Again, the only feature i’ve seen mentioned as a positive is controlling a clock/alarm

You’re even acknowledging how cumbersome iot is

Is that really the pinnacle of virtual assistants - billion dollar alarm handlers?

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

#440

Post by atchoo » Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 7:41 PM UTC

rahoulb wrote: post #372

cubefox wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So just because the "th" sound doesn't exist in many languages, like German, they should pronounce "Heath Ledger" or "Anthony Hopkins" or "The Beatles" incorrectly? That seems to me a way more "insane" standard. By the way, the Scottish are perfectly able to pronounce "Loch Ness", which has the same sound for "ch" as "Bach".

I think there's something about sounds that you learn early on in language acquisition - maybe your brain develops differently. 'th' is the obvious one that non-english speakers struggle with. I remember a dutch guy laughing at my attempts at various dutch words - I literally could not hear the difference between his pronunciation and mine. And 'ch' (as in Loch or Bach) is a sound in Scottish english but not in Engli…

> And 'ch' (as in Loch or Bach) is a sound in Scottish english but not in English english.

You need to talk to a Scouser! Back and Lock will be pronounced Bach and Loch.