New 'Hey Siri' website indexes successful voice queries for Apple's Siri

AppleInsider

A new website chronicles what users can say to Apple's Siri, and what to expect in return, for iOS 9 as well as the forthcoming iOS 10 and macOS Sierra implementations of the virtual assistant.

The site uses crowdsourced data to share successful queries made to Siri. At present, 34 categories of questions are listed, including examples of unit conversions, device settings, messaging requests, e-mail manipulations, and so forth.

General phrases that Siri can manage are listed, with a highlighed word in the phrase in some queries able to be changed by the user, depending on context. For instance, Siri can be asked to "show me my favorite photos," but a similar question can also be phrased as "show me my favorite photos from New York."

Apple has no similar guide available to the public or to developers at this time.

Siri debuted in 2011 on the iPhone 4s with iOS 5. Siri's abilities have escalated with time, adding sport scores, restaurant reservations and movie showtimes in iOS 6. Wikipedia and Twitter searches were added with iOS 7. Apple added integrations with Apple Music and the Apple Watch when both products launched.

Starting with iOS 10 and macOS Sierra, Siri will expand past Apple-only applications, and will include third-party app integration capability. The updated Siri in iOS 10 and macOS Sierra will also support payments, photo searches, ridesharing applications, and VoIP calls.

The Siri remote on the fourth generation Apple TV was derided at launch, but has improved some with revisions to the tvOS. It is not known if any of the improvements to Siri in iOS 10 and macOS Sierra will be implemented in tvOS at the same time.

SpamSandwich

Personally, I barely use Siri anymore due to previously experienced limitations. If it gets much, much better at some point in the future I may reconsider using it more generally.

patsu

I use it a lot in the car, and for setting reminders generally.

On Apple TV, mostly for searches.

nolamacguy

i use it all the time. just made a doctors appt 5 minutes ago.

my favorite siri tip -- "Show me photos from August 2015" (whenever). way easier than scrolling thru pics or collections.

techprod1gy

I am thinking it takes a bit more of a learning curve and habit to make use of this. I am finding old habits are getting in the way of truly benefiting from SIRI. I have also found in several environments where the microphone or software does not pick up what I am saying very well. I do however see the vast potential this technology can bring once it becomes fully developed and tuned.

cropr

sog35 said:

SpamSandwich said:

Personally, I barely use Siri anymore due to previously experienced limitations. If it gets much, much better at some point in the future I may reconsider using it more generally.

too bad for you. its very useful for me for CarPlay, AppleTV, and Watch

I don't use it neither because the Dutch version of Siri does not understand my Dutch (it could be me). The English version of Siri understands my English better, but sadly  misses the Dutch and Flemish names (people, towns, addresses, ...)  So eventually I stopped cursing at Siri and left it for what it was.

For the record Google Now performs better when trying to understand my Dutch, but there is still a lot of room for improvement.

mnbob1

SpamSandwich said:

Personally, I barely use Siri anymore due to previously experienced limitations. If it gets much, much better at some point in the future I may reconsider using it more generally.

That's too bad you don't take advantage of a very useful feature of iOS. iOS 9 greatly improved Siri's abilities to many functions and in iOS 10 Apple has added contextual features to sequentual queries. That along with creating development API's for developers to integrate Siri into their apps makes it one of the best iOS and soon to be macOS features. Since you made the decision to leave it behind and not take advantage of the improvements when they were introduced you'll probably find yourself sorry you missed the opportunities for using your iPhone and/or iPad to their fullest capabilities. There's not a day that goes by that I don't use Siri. I have made appointments, texted, made phone calls, done searches, changed settings, asked for directions, made reservations, played music from my playlists, checked balls scores, found out who's pitching in today's Twins game (or any game), get the major league standings, get information on a player from Wikipedia and she will even read it to you. Siri isn't a joke and not just for asking goofy questions that get goofy answers. Or maybe you don't do anything and don't need her for any of those things?

mac fan

I use Siri a lot, but in limited situations. She just doesn't parse some simple requests well. Her readback is comical sometimes comical but always frustrating.

One example that comes to mind is her converting to in a sentence to 2. Her readback of the sentence usually starts I'm sorry, Mac Guy, I don't understand "convert 2 to ___". 

There's work to be done, but what she does do, she does well. Not AI, but sometimes the interaction fools me for a second.

anantksundaram

SpamSandwich said:

Personally, I barely use Siri anymore due to previously experienced limitations. If it gets much, much better at some point in the future I may reconsider using it more generally.

Same here. It's good for pedestrian stuff like "wake me up at X.XX" or "set the timer", that's about it. It's quite embarrassing how one can't have anything resembling a more substantive conversation -- e.g., a follow-up question to a Siri answer -- with it.

Apple has massively overpromised and underperformed on the Siri front.

anantksundaram

techprod1gy said:

I am thinking it takes a bit more of a learning curve and habit to make use of this. I am finding old habits are getting in the way of truly benefiting from SIRI. I have also found in several environments where the microphone or software does not pick up what I am saying very well. I do however see the vast potential this technology can bring once it becomes fully developed and tuned.

One would have thought that the role of Siri is to get on a bit more of a learning curve to understand its customer's queries than vice versa. Hmm... maybe I am looking at it all wrong...

;-)

/s

TurboPGT

My biggest problem with Siri is that it is FAR too niche in what it can/cannot do. It can do MOST basic tasks, but not all basic tasks. It can also do extremely complicated tasks that Apple has put a lot of effort into making possible...but no person would ever think to ask Siri to do such complicated things, when it fails to do such simple things.

Basic things Siri cannot do, which are inexplicable:

-Control AppleTV.
-Set a Find Friends leave/arrive alert.
-Search email with filters such as date, sender.

I'm talking basic tasks that require no user oversight. Things you can do, even deep within Apps, that just a series of dependable taps to accomplish should always be possible with Siri.

mike1

SpamSandwich said:

Personally, I barely use Siri anymore due to previously experienced limitations. If it gets much, much better at some point in the future I may reconsider using it more generally.

In the last few days alone, I've...
Dictated multiple iMessages while driving.
Found movie times.
Gotten directions and started navigation.
Called several people using Siri.
Gotten weather for a city I was traveling to.

steveau

I'd use it if it could understand my accent. We had friends round for dinner last night and he and I were chatting in front of the TV while the girls prepared dinner. He mentioned the TV show Spartacus, which I hadn't seen, so I picked up the appleTV remote (there was some light music playing and my favourite photos were slowly rising and occasionally flipping on the screen) and went to search on the TV app. Held down the voice button and said "Spartacus". Siri responded with "spectacles", my Kansa born friend said "let me try" and Siri got it in one. When Apple launches Ausiri (

tallest skil

steveau said:

I’d use it if it could understand my accent. …Kansas… …Ausiri…

Did you have it set to English (Australia) or English (United States) at the time?