radugrama

Soli said:

It hasn't? How are quantifying that? I could create tests that could show Siri not changing at all to changing dramatically since it's first release as an Apple Service, but that would only show those specific metrics. That's because it's very difficult to gauge how Siri as a whole has evolved in terms of its speech recognition, its ability to correctly convert to the correct spelling of a homonym (contextual), its ability to proper analyze a query or statement (regardless of whether it can answer it), its database of available information, the services/apps it can access as part of the personal digital assistant service, its speed/Apple servers.

I remember the first weekend when the service would time out because the servers were overloaded. Does that happen know despite there not just being a million phones but hundreds of times that number being able to access the service? Surely their Siri traffic is higher now, but I also assume per-device traffic was higher that weekend as people were testing the service, so you could measure even just the access to Siri in different ways. I couldn't even tell you if it was a server HW, network HW, or SW issue that caused those rampant timeouts… and that's just a single possible data point in comparing Siri today to Siri from 2011.

Objectively speaking, I have no way to quantify my statement and your statement is 100% correct. Unfortunately, we live in the subjective realm of end-users, where Apple and its spin doctors are supposed to be pretty darn good and delivering magic or making us feel that they deliver magic. Subjectively speaking, they fail, and for 6 1/2 years Siri - on my various generations of iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch, iMac and MacBook Pro - has continued to fail to understand what I'm saying while Google Assistant and - for goodness sake - freaking Cortana have no problems understanding me on the very same devices sometimes. When that happens subjectivity trumps objectivity!

gatorguy said:

Apple is promoting HomePod for the sound, a very smart marketing move while Siri matures. I suspect 10 years from now there will be little practical difference in the effectiveness of the various "assistants". 

I love the way you put this - "while Siri matures" - and I agree 100%. Sadly, Siri came out more than 6 1/2 years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siri) and hasn't improved much. In the meantime Google, Amazon and even Microsoft just flew by. 

williamlondon said:

radugrama said:

I would be curious to read an article on what ratio of people are simply waiting for Apple to get Siri's voice recognition shit together before considering using it on any Apple device. Really, Siri is the least used feature on my iPhone, Apple Watch and Apple TV and the last thing I need is a dedicated device that fails to understand me, whatever the price point. Somehow, in a frustrating manner, year over year, Apple fails to understand that they need to fix Siri's voice recognition. Google and Amazon aside, but when even Microsoft's Cortana has better voice recognition than Siri... I think we have a problem.

You know the only place I hear that is on forums like this (ironically). Talking to real people who have Alexa/Google and Siri, that's a bunch of shit, Siri is the only one that gets things right, and not only that, but Siri understands the context better and provides better information than replacing your typing the same thing in a simple Google search.

I wish that would be the case, but it's not. My family (of 3) lives in an Apple ecosystem, we have iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, MacBooks and iMacs, so you could call me a bit of a fanboy. For everything except Siri. To put it nicely, Siri is shit! I don't use Alexa (I have a FireTV that I haven't used in years) so I can't compare with Alexa, but I use Google Assistant in iOS and Google Home and they just understand a lot more in two ways: (1) the accuracy of the words understood is significantly greater, and (2) the understanding of the context is significantly greater. I just find Siri (on any device) impossible to use, and I cannot see how Home Pod (which would feel great into my ecosystem), would make a difference until Apple fixes Siri. Until then it's the same shit inside a likely amazing speaker.

I would be curious to read an article on what ratio of people are simply waiting for Apple to get Siri's voice recognition shit together before considering using it on any Apple device. Really, Siri is the least used feature on my iPhone, Apple Watch and Apple TV and the last thing I need is a dedicated device that fails to understand me, whatever the price point. Somehow, in a frustrating manner, year over year, Apple fails to understand that they need to fix Siri's voice recognition. Google and Amazon aside, but when even Microsoft's Cortana has better voice recognition than Siri... I think we have a problem.