“Sometimes, writers feel the need to flex their vocal chords just to test that they still work. They talk to themselves or to the unhearing world out there,” Chris Matyszczyk writes for CNET. “I feel sure every writer does this.”
“So there I was last week, writing on my MacBook with my iPhone plugged into it, charging away (the iPhone and me). Suddenly, I received an email. It contained information that was marginally annoying,” Matyszczyk writes. “‘Are you serious?’ I hissed. A voice immediately replied: ‘Yes?’ I leaped a little.”
“It took several seconds for me to realize where the reply was coming from. Slowly, suspiciously I turned to my right where my iPhone had lit up. It was Siri,” Matyszczyk writes. “Yet again, she’d misunderstood my odd foreign accent and believed that I was addressing her. My ‘serious’ was her “Siri.””
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Poor Siri. Like every other so-caled personal assistant we’ve ever tried, she’s not that bright and more than bit hard of hearing. But, she’s better than every other personal assistant we’ve ever tried – especially for those of us with Apple Watches (which, for some reason work better for Siri than any iPad, Mac, iPhone, and Apple TV we’ve ever tried).
Siri rarely ever works right for me. I’ve long ago gave up on Apple making any progress in their virtual assistant.
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Siri sucks!
Ok true story no lie, yesterday I told Siri “call mom” so t would call my mom. It would say calling “Derrick” which is my name…
I tried 4 times in a quiet house. No one talking so it wouldn’t miss what I was saying. I said the words one at a time and slowly so my pronunciation was perfectly clear. Each time it would not call my mom, which is clearly labeled in my phone by the way, and it would end up calling myself which would go to my voice mail.
I don’t use Siri because it just doesn’t work. Apple, I staying with their “it just works” policy, needs to stick a knife in Siri if they aren’t going to do anything good with it.
Hey, I have a simple trick for you when using Siri. It’s intended to understand natural language. That doesn’t just mean asking things like “Will I need sunglasses at the weekend?” As an alternative to asking for the weather forecast. You should speak to it naturally, don’t be condescending or speak with commands…don’t hold the phone right to your mouth and speckle spit into the microphone. Just pick it up, act natural – relax and speak smoothly and you’ll find it works well in the environment you described. I mumble when I speak but she understands me, not every time, but very well.
Anchorman quote: 70% of the time, it works EVERYTIME!
Yes, Siri SUCKS!
I ask simple questions to dial a number in my address book and it gets it wrong.
I’ve given up …
A couple of days ago, I was dictating my .mac address within iMessage. Siri’s translation was: xxxx@mack.com. This is inexcusable for so many reasons…so again, I can authoritatively say; Siri’s an idiot.
I use Siri all the time while driving with a cheap bluetooth earpiece. I dictate texts and have her read incoming texts to me. Works 95% of the time.
I have now gotten to the point of telling her to text someone, add a very slight pause and then give the message. Siri will figure out the person’s name and separate it from the rest of the sentence and make that the text message.
I read this stuff all the time… Siri is about 99.9% accurate for me in the car and on the device. I live in Arkansas and assume I sounds like all the folks here.
I’m a bilingual German (German and English). I’ve lived in the USA quite a while. US Siri sucks. German Siri works, kinda. British Siri is awesome! Go figure!?!
Getting a watch you don’t want or need is Not the answer to an improved or working Siri. Spin! It has its limitations, but is not as bad as some people claim- although I have not made comparisons. No, a press release or product review suggesting that people try it on the watch instead is Not. A solution.
Actually, a little bird told me they were going to bundle Apple watches with the iPhone 8. Problem solved?
Although it might not be a representative sample, I’d still like to see an MDN poll about Siri accuracies. She works very well for me, probably 90% correct, and when there’s an error, it’s something funky I’ve asked for and I can see where it came from. Errors in dialing are intermittent and inconsistent. I don’t think it’s necessarily Siri, but rather something about my Contacts software.
Steve Jobs : You Siriing it wrong!!!
Let me show you…
Recently, since OS 10, – When I press the “Siri” button, Siri IS activated but her voice does not come on. Knowing that it is “on”, I respond “Send xxxx a text message”. At this point, Siri’s voice says “OK, what do you want to say?”
No voice at activation, but voice after I tell it to do something. I’m trying to figure out if it is my iPhone 6 or the OS 10.
BTW, I have a fair southern drawl (MS), but spent 25 years overseas. As a result I go into my “international” English accent mode with Siri and I get about 95% or better results.
What I hate about Siri is, I can’t quit it or any other app using it. When Siri screws up, I’d like to say something like, “Siri, quit.” and have her quit doing whatever she’s doing wrong. Also, I’ have trouble getting Maps to quit too when using CarPlay or having input a specific location by hand. I’d like to be able to tell Siri to, “Quit navigating.” or “Quit, searching.”, etc.
Overall Siri is about 65-75% accurate. I often get misunderstood things it wants to do that aren’t even close. Hence, the strong desire to tell Siri to quit something. Instead, I have to interact with the phone physically which at times can be a pain (e.g. when tucked away in my glove box while using CarPlay, etc.)
Siri is terrible. Plain and simple. Anyone who says otherwise should be looked at with severe suspicion.
I constantly get the impression people want Siri to be 100% accurate when even other humans who have the same native language aren’t 100% accurate.
Isn’t Siri meant to get better, the more you use it?With my Singaporean accent, I can now mumble anything in English and Siri understand and responses every tie!
So for those who still have difficulties makig it work for you, make it learn you voice by using simple commands/queries 1st, then progressively add in “what is life” sorta questions!!
Oops, excuse the typo! iOS 10 seems to be slowing my iPad Air when I typed in my message as it was quite laggy…:o