Siri is next to useless, and I find using it to be a constant source of frustration. I tried to use it yesterday to request directions from the Paradise Rock Club in Boston to a nearby hotel; it presented my with a list of places with Paradise in the name, none of which was the one I requested. I was able to repeat this behavior several times. Then I simply asked for the location of the Paradise Rock Club and it found it immediately, and I was forced to use Maps manually to get the directions (I was driving at the time). As others have pointed out, there seems to be a disconnect in Maps location requests. Anyway, this is just one example of its inconsistent and generally poor performance, but maybe my expectations are too high.
I gave up on SIRI when I asked it for the phone number of American Airlines Reservations but kept getting listings of HOTELS. I've read these statistics that are supposed to show that more people use Siri and iMaps that Google Maps. I've come to the conclusion that a lot of people's experiences are similar to mine. I use iMaps by default (a couple times) and then turn to google Maps out of frustration to get the right map.
I don't know about usability in comparison to other AI assistants, since I don't use anything else, but Siri has no problem at all understanding my Indian accent. Sure, I cannot use it to ask for directions or set location-based reminders, mainly because Maps doesn't work in India, but it has no problem understanding what I say.
Siri on the Apple Watch is really very useful. When I ask her to dial a number, or I dictate a message, it works flawlessly.
Not interested in either Alexa, or Cortana, or Google Voice. Any upgrades to Siri will always be welcome.
I hope they drop the 'hey' and all other childish gimmicks and focus on real functionality, like for example trying to understand a sentence instead of matching canned input to canned replies. It would also be nice if they used the supercomputer inside the iPhone instead of a needless - and most of the time useless when needed - iCloud server park. I do agree that a good personal assistant AI will be the deciding factor in the future. Google has Ray, Apple has ???
Hey isn't a childish gimmick. Having a set phrase "hey siri" "okay google" or "alexa" gives the device the time to start listening in time to catch what you've said.
Everyone involved is working hard to try to understand what is being said.
The processing power (and matrix of meaning) in the cloud is vastly more powerful than what could be stored locally. That said, it does seem like very commonly used phrases could be processed locally, making it faster and more reliable when on a poor network connection. Older iPhones before Siri could respond to a variety of simple tasks.
You don't have to explained it to me, I understand a lot (if not all) in this field. But your wrong, the childish or juvenile part is what 'hey' sounds like (like juveniles meeting each other). I wouldn't want to be associated with that, that's not the language I would like to use, and I assume most non juveniles would object the same as I do. It's a matter of taste, as some would say. The cloud isn't more powerful, it's the other way round. Think of it, why would scientist use crowd computing apps to solve most computing intensive problems? What happens when lots of people hammer one server. Also, network connections never work (well) when you need them. And so on.
No one likes to talk to a machine. It's way much easier to open an app and makes 3-4 clicks. I bet I can get the weather and start google play music on my Sonos speaker faster than anybody with any supposedly smart assistant. I'm what most people considered a geek and therefore I know a lot of geek people.....and a lot of "regular people" too....and I don't know a SINGLE person who uses those voice assistants.
The only person I know who uses it is in the car with google Maps...that's it...that's all. That's where it belongs for the next couple of decades for sure.
When will people understand that nobody likes to talk to a voice assistant while it's a lot easier to just make 2-3 clicks ? I guess there is so much money involved that they want to force it down our throat....but it won't work.
I'm not saying there is no market at all here...But if they think that most people will adopt this...well they are completely stupid.
The technology is just not there yet...not even close.
Comments
I've read these statistics that are supposed to show that more people use Siri and iMaps that Google Maps.
I've come to the conclusion that a lot of people's experiences are similar to mine. I use iMaps by default (a couple times)
and then turn to google Maps out of frustration to get the right map.
I don't know about usability in comparison to other AI assistants, since I don't use anything else, but Siri has no problem at all understanding my Indian accent. Sure, I cannot use it to ask for directions or set location-based reminders, mainly because Maps doesn't work in India, but it has no problem understanding what I say.
Siri on the Apple Watch is really very useful. When I ask her to dial a number, or I dictate a message, it works flawlessly.
Not interested in either Alexa, or Cortana, or Google Voice. Any upgrades to Siri will always be welcome.
But your wrong, the childish or juvenile part is what 'hey' sounds like (like juveniles meeting each other).
I wouldn't want to be associated with that, that's not the language I would like to use, and I assume most non juveniles would object the same as I do. It's a matter of taste, as some would say.
The cloud isn't more powerful, it's the other way round. Think of it, why would scientist use crowd computing apps to solve most computing intensive problems? What happens when lots of people hammer one server. Also, network connections never work (well) when you need them. And so on.
The only person I know who uses it is in the car with google Maps...that's it...that's all. That's where it belongs for the next couple of decades for sure.
When will people understand that nobody likes to talk to a voice assistant while it's a lot easier to just make 2-3 clicks ? I guess there is so much money involved that they want to force it down our throat....but it won't work.
I'm not saying there is no market at all here...But if they think that most people will adopt this...well they are completely stupid.
The technology is just not there yet...not even close.