Oh look! Another pundit telling Apple it must go after the low end market to survive and compete. It’s all about going cheap isn’t it. Cheaper is better by definition, right? So along with a $150 iPhone, a $149 iPad, a $399 Mac with slots, now Apple must come up with a $180 digital assistant to compete with the Echo Dot, a $30 gadget. I’m truly sorry to be responding with extreme sarcasm but we’ve been listening to this go cheap drumbeat every tine a new product category becomes popular. Apple can’t survive without eventually going cheap.
1. Apple is not the largest manufacturer of PCs.
2. Apple is not the largest manufacturer of smartphones.
3. Apple is not the largest manufacturer of tablets.
4. Apple does not have the largest music and video streaming service.
5. Apple is not the largest manufacturer of digital assistants.
Yet Apple has managed to amass a $250 Billion pile of cash, and Apple has managed to rise to a market capitalization of around $900 Billion, all without competing at the low end of any of the markets it is in. And it did this by sticking to its principles of making high quality products that people love to use. So tell me again why Apple must go low to survive?
I wouldn't say they need to go cheap, just cheaper.
Or what, if they don't go cheaper? His list shows that Apple has been very, very successful not chasing the lower-end, and instead sticking to premium tier. What's different about this market? (honestly asking as I don't know myself)
A smartspeaker, arguably, is a very different beast than a PC or smartphone. The important thing isn't the hardware - though there are certain minimum standards - so much as the AI assistant attached to it, and how useful it is. If an Echo is cheaper to install, offers more functionality, and can still produce high-end audio if you connect to external speakers, that poses an obstacle.
Local processing will be needed before I accept such a thing in my life. You’re not going to record what few words I say and use them for your own purposes.
that would be great and would explain the use of the A8 Chip.
Apple should have been in this market first. Siri is consistently terrible and it’s embarrasing for them that Amazon have come from no where to create this whole Echo/AI market. I just can’t understand what Apple and Google are doing with all their money and knowledge. They are both now playing catch up to Amazon? A shopping store.
I hope Apple intend to do something more than just look out the windows in their new campus.
Funny how Siri works awesomely for me and millions of others and does things I actually want. That does not include buying things from Amazon by voice.
Good for you and these millions.
But as a Dutch speaking Belgian, I can say that Srii in Dutch is useless, because it is does not understand 80% of what I am saying. Using Siri in English is much better in recognizing what I am saying, but Siri in English does not understand any Dutch or French names, which is quite painful for navigation and contact related apps. Asking Siri in English to play a song with a English title works fine, but that's about it. Very poor of Apple.
And by the way, Google Now on an iPhone does a much better job in understanding my Dutch, so it can't be that difficult.
If Siri really were not understanding 80% of what one says in Dutch Apple wouldn't release a Dutch Siri. So what Siri is not understanding according to your claim is probably not your utterance but your "intent". And misunderstanding or missing an intent is a subjective fact. Try to comply with the given Siri examples and you'll perform better in communicating your intent to Siri. That is you that must perform better in communicating intent, not Siri. That doesn't mean that Siri has no shortcomings or errors. As human communication is not devoid of errors or misunderstandings, communicating with a machine has its own but different limitations and compromises. Tell Siri a poem and expect it applauds, will never happen...
Siri will recognize French and English names in a Dutch sentence. But an English Siri cannot cope with Dutch place names and directions, this is a known fact with other languages and geographies as well. If you want to use Siri in local navigation you must set it to local language.
You should not blame the messenger for Apple releasing a bad quality product. The Dutch version of Siri is what it is, a very poor product.
Some months ago I asked the Dutch version of Siri the route to 5 main streets of Antwerp, the biggest Dutch speaking city in Belgium: Of "Noorderlaan", "Amerkalei", "Desguinlei", "Meir", "Grote Steenweg", Siri only gave me a correct route for "Noorderlaan": that is an 80% miss. My intent was very clear and Siri did understand my intent, but not the names of the streets, making it completely useless for navigation purposes. One could wonder how the quality assurance happened, if it does not understand the main streets of Antwerp.
Google Now did 4 out of 5, only missing "Desguilei", which is the toughest one as is it the combination of a French part "Desguin" and a Dutch part "lei". And I could force Google Now to understand it if I pronounced "Deguinlei" as a full Dutch word. This trick did not help with Siri.
You evidently have to be famous like Barbra Streisand to get Siri to know and understand the correct pronunciations of these words.
SIRI is working well enough but she needs to have these two attributes to make a next step: 1. Contextual aware. If Apple wants SIRI to be natural, this needs to come ASAP. 2. Like all smart human being, SIRI needs to be able to understand 2 languages or more at the same time (the more the merrier)
What Apple did wrong for SIRI is almost lethal by thinking she’s a service and had a service guy, Eddy Cue, overlooked it. SIRI should be a system. She should be in someone’s hand who’s very bright & very visionary, not a corporate guy.
That said, Amazon hasn’t produce Echo sales or revenue numbers, and knowing the press will always looking for Apple killer & will cheer for any potential one to high heaven I’m still cautious on Amazon success here.
Yes its still early in the AI races, although I would be worried if Siri isn't much better with or part of the HomePod release. (It would be like Apple is even going to try)
Siri doesnt like the Scottish accent but Alexia does. I bought the new fire stick and for £25 can now control my Hive heating system from British Gas, something Siri cant do as Apple want them to have some type of support chip installed. I dont use my fire stick for that, I'm just trying to point out a £25 gadget can understand me 95% of the time and do things that my £700 apple phone cant.
How did amazon beat both Apple and Google to the punch. I love my Apple gear and dont mind paying a premium, but I do need it to do simple things that it cant seem to do at the minute. If Apple dont get this sorted out quickly, I might just start using the Amazon system. HomePod doesn't seem to have taken off very well.
So much misinformation about Siri. To begin with most folks don't realize that Siri is by far the most used digital assistant in the world. Next, Siri knows by far the most languages. Next, remember that Siri is the only one that doesn't ilnvade your privacy and store everything that is said in front of it. Google stores everything you say for ever and links it to your universal identifier number that has where you drive, what you read, what you post, every photo you've ever taken, every website you've ever visited, etc., etc.,
I use Siri every day to set alarms, timers, get directions, read and send texts, play songs, set reminders time and geo based, etc., and she does an excellent job. And, there's no one better with sports.
SIri's not perfect, but most every head to head comparison shows that Siri is better except in search where Google is still tops, but Siri is overall most capable.
"Google stores everything you say for ever and links it to your universal identifier number that has where you drive, what you read, what you post, every photo you've ever taken, every website you've ever visited, etc., etc., "
The fact that Google amasses and processes all that data is what makes it so effective. Nevermind the data it's collected the past couple of decades investing in search & maps. Data is the new oil with respect to cloud-based services.
What data? The majority of its data is produced by “content farms”, remember those “work at home to make 40 grand a week” spams? Those are content farms. Tired of reporting those search results. At the top there is a Wikipedia entry if any, the rest is crap. Their satellite imagery is decade old at best. Apple’s satellite imagery is fresh.
Apple want them to have some type of support chip installed. Gary.
Nope. All they expect is Apple’s security. However, as that’ll cost a bit more, companies don’t bother. Only Apple care about your home not being hacked, other companies just care about your money.
Siri doesnt like the Scottish accent but Alexia does. I bought the new fire stick and for £25 can now control my Hive heating system from British Gas, something Siri cant do as Apple want them to have some type of support chip installed. I dont use my fire stick for that, I'm just trying to point out a £25 gadget can understand me 95% of the time and do things that my £700 apple phone cant.
How did amazon beat both Apple and Google to the punch. I love my Apple gear and dont mind paying a premium, but I do need it to do simple things that it cant seem to do at the minute. If Apple dont get this sorted out quickly, I might just start using the Amazon system. HomePod doesn't seem to have taken off very well.
Gary.
I have the same problem with Siri and am neither Scottish or Dutch. Just American English. I have no interest in CarPlay or an Apple Car (although I'm sure an electric Apple Car would be a success) because of Siri's poor performance. I don't think Siri needs to have a ton of data to be much more useful. It just needs to be able to understand what people are saying and then interpret what they are saying better. Like when I say "Play latest CultCast Podcast" it should be able to figure out that it should open up the Podcast App, look for the CultCast podcast (which is one of my favorites) and then refresh the list of podcast and play the most recent.
The biggest threat to Apple, Samsung, and Google is Amazon. I expect Jeff Bezos to put out a Prime Phone within a few years. Amazon isn't building a 2nd Headquarters just because they want to sell more books. (J.B. probably decided to go "thermonuclear" on Apple when they did iBooks). Google were fools to make Android open system - too easy for Amazon to fork it.
There’s a reason Apple focused HomePod on home audio and not smart assistant. Siri needs to get way better. And on the Watch it’s incredibly slow. I’ll ask Siri a simple question about the weather and it gives me a message that says ‘hang on a minute....I’ll tap you when I’m ready’. WTF is that? Siri should be instantaneous, especially on the wrist. I’ve said it before and will say it again, Tim Cook needs to hire a dedicated SVP to oversee Apple’s cloud business including Siri and maps. Federighi has his hands full with operating systems and core apps and Eddy Cue has more than enough on his plate with Apple Pay, iTunes, Apple Music, Apple TV and now Apple’s push into original content. Problem is too many think Apple’s services being good enough instead of best in class is fine. It’s not. Right now on the AppStore the top free apps are from Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix and Spotify. Would that be the case Apple’s native offerings were best in class?
I believe they don't need to push "a lot harder". I expect HomePods Siri to be synced with my Apple ecosystem, not just iTunes media, but Finder integration, Photos, iCloud, etc. I don't expect that Google, nor Amazon would write an app so qualified for this to be usable.
There’s a reason Apple focused HomePod on home audio and not smart assistant. Siri needs to get way better. And on the Watch it’s incredibly slow. I’ll ask Siri a simple question about the weather and it gives me a message that says ‘hang on a minute....I’ll tap you when I’m ready’. WTF is that? Siri should be instantaneous, especially on the wrist.
Aren't you on the original AW0? The Series 0 is slow, Siri was never great on it and watchOS 4 likely made it slower on older hardware. On the AW3 Siri is much faster.
I'm just trying to point out a £25 gadget can understand me 95% of the time and do things that my £700 apple phone cant.
HomePod doesn't seem to have taken off very well.
I’m willing to bet there are a lot more things you can do with your £700 phone than you can possibly do with your £25 gadget.
How can you say HomePod hasn’t taken off very well when it is not even available to purchase? What unreleased products would you say have taken off well?
There’s a reason Apple focused HomePod on home audio and not smart assistant. Siri needs to get way better. And on the Watch it’s incredibly slow. I’ll ask Siri a simple question about the weather and it gives me a message that says ‘hang on a minute....I’ll tap you when I’m ready’. WTF is that? Siri should be instantaneous, especially on the wrist. I’ve said it before and will say it again, Tim Cook needs to hire a dedicated SVP to oversee Apple’s cloud business including Siri and maps. Federighi has his hands full with operating systems and core apps and Eddy Cue has more than enough on his plate with Apple Pay, iTunes, Apple Music, Apple TV and now Apple’s push into original content. Problem is too many think Apple’s services being good enough instead of best in class is fine. It’s not. Right now on the AppStore the top free apps are from Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix and Spotify. Would that be the case Apple’s native offerings were best in class?
Siri is not slow on the watch, as proven by turn by turn navigation, zero lag.
Every service takes some time to initialize. Weather is not exception. On the other hand that Siri example disproves yourself by showing how Siri is fast in responding instantaneously to your question. Is that Siri’s fault if weather data comes slowly from the service provider? That is most probably because of your crappy connection.
There’s a reason Apple focused HomePod on home audio and not smart assistant. Siri needs to get way better. And on the Watch it’s incredibly slow. I’ll ask Siri a simple question about the weather and it gives me a message that says ‘hang on a minute....I’ll tap you when I’m ready’. WTF is that? Siri should be instantaneous, especially on the wrist. I’ve said it before and will say it again, Tim Cook needs to hire a dedicated SVP to oversee Apple’s cloud business including Siri and maps. Federighi has his hands full with operating systems and core apps and Eddy Cue has more than enough on his plate with Apple Pay, iTunes, Apple Music, Apple TV and now Apple’s push into original content. Problem is too many think Apple’s services being good enough instead of best in class is fine. It’s not. Right now on the AppStore the top free apps are from Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix and Spotify. Would that be the case Apple’s native offerings were best in class?
Excellent post. Seems very clear that everything you're saying is right on point.
Also.. siri on the watch is very frustrating, especially considering that it's Apple's answer to cheap alexa/google home devices. I have the series two and I get the "I'll tap you when I'm ready" all the time, even when I'm on my home wifi network. And even when my phone isn't on me I'll look for it rather than play Russian roulette with siri on the watch.
Siri doesnt like the Scottish accent but Alexia does. I bought the new fire stick and for £25 can now control my Hive heating system from British Gas, something Siri cant do as Apple want them to have some type of support chip installed. I dont use my fire stick for that, I'm just trying to point out a £25 gadget can understand me 95% of the time and do things that my £700 apple phone cant.
How did amazon beat both Apple and Google to the punch. I love my Apple gear and dont mind paying a premium, but I do need it to do simple things that it cant seem to do at the minute. If Apple dont get this sorted out quickly, I might just start using the Amazon system. HomePod doesn't seem to have taken off very well.
Gary.
I have the same problem with Siri and am neither Scottish or Dutch. Just American English. I have no interest in CarPlay or an Apple Car (although I'm sure an electric Apple Car would be a success) because of Siri's poor performance. I don't think Siri needs to have a ton of data to be much more useful. It just needs to be able to understand what people are saying and then interpret what they are saying better. Like when I say "Play latest CultCast Podcast" it should be able to figure out that it should open up the Podcast App, look for the CultCast podcast (which is one of my favorites) and then refresh the list of podcast and play the most recent.
The biggest threat to Apple, Samsung, and Google is Amazon. I expect Jeff Bezos to put out a Prime Phone within a few years. Amazon isn't building a 2nd Headquarters just because they want to sell more books. (J.B. probably decided to go "thermonuclear" on Apple when they did iBooks). Google were fools to make Android open system - too easy for Amazon to fork it.
I hear people say this from time but I think Amazon has a long way to go still. First and foremost Amazon doesn’t have a platform like Apple, Google, or Microsoft. You need a platform for others to build off of. Even a huge company like Microsoft couldn’t get a platform going after they missed the smartphone race. Granted The Echo is the closest thing to a platform Amazon has and it has mind share, more than one variation and it seems to be selling. However, in order to customize the echo you need to download an app. We know Amazon won’t make another phone after what happened last time.
Which also brings another problem, Amazon doesn’t have much of or any design chops. The echos are nice but I’ve never heard anyone describe them as good looking. A third problem I can see see is customer service. Where does one go to service a broken Amazon product. I know some places like New York offer same day delivery but that’s only a few big markets. Also what about outside of US, Canada just recently got Prime and the ability to buy the Echoes.
Apple should have been in this market first. Siri is consistently terrible and it’s embarrasing for them that Amazon have come from no where to create this whole Echo/AI market. I just can’t understand what Apple and Google are doing with all their money and knowledge. They are both now playing catch up to Amazon? A shopping store.
I hope Apple intend to do something more than just look out the windows in their new campus.
Stop with the trolling about Siri. You have no clue about Siri or its capabilities.
REALLY?! Seriously? You're defending Siri? Have you even TRIED anything else?
We recently got a new TV system in our house that includes voice control, which renewed my interest in Siri. Aside from being MUCH more picky about how I phrase my requests compared to even just a stupid cable box, every fourth or fifth request to Siri fails. "Shuffle the playlist Xmas" worked this morning, but when I said the same thing this afternoon, Siri responded "I can't do that." I repeated the request, word for word, and Siri replied with something about no such playlist exists. I tried a third time, same words, and it worked. It would have been faster to scroll through screens/menus.
TV: "Delete this show." Done. Siri on Apple TV: "Delete this show." Can't do that.
TV: "Zoo." Brings up TV listings, recordings, On Demand, and Netflix. Siri on Apple TV: "Zoo." Shows me links to buy it on the iTunes store, with no mention of the three seasons sitting on my local system with Home Sharing on. I can bring them up manually by choosing "Computers / TV shows" but Siri doesn't reveal them.
"Directions to the nearest Home Depot." Google Maps: "Go north on Boundary Road for fifteen kilometres. Stay in the right lane." Apple Maps via Siri: "I found four Home Depots near you. Which one would you like?" Following up with "Whichever one is closest!" does not work.
It goes on and on and I could fill pages here with examples but I'm tired of typing and I think the point is made. Siri is not "useless" but is not NEARLY as comprehensive, capable, or even reliable as other, similar services. I'd rather have Siri than not, but it would not be my first choice for a high-quality, enjoyable, easy-to-use control system.
Oh look! Another pundit telling Apple it must go after the low end market to survive and compete. It’s all about going cheap isn’t it. Cheaper is better by definition, right? So along with a $150 iPhone, a $149 iPad, a $399 Mac with slots, now Apple must come up with a $180 digital assistant to compete with the Echo Dot, a $30 gadget. I’m truly sorry to be responding with extreme sarcasm but we’ve been listening to this go cheap drumbeat every tine a new product category becomes popular. Apple can’t survive without eventually going cheap.
1. Apple is not the largest manufacturer of PCs.
2. Apple is not the largest manufacturer of smartphones.
3. Apple is not the largest manufacturer of tablets.
4. Apple does not have the largest music and video streaming service.
5. Apple is not the largest manufacturer of digital assistants.
Yet Apple has managed to amass a $250 Billion pile of cash, and Apple has managed to rise to a market capitalization of around $900 Billion, all without competing at the low end of any of the markets it is in. And it did this by sticking to its principles of making high quality products that people love to use. So tell me again why Apple must go low to survive?
All true. So is what Neil said.
Apple will not achieve penetration in the home automation market with the HomePod. It's too big and expensive to become a popular interface point.
Now, clearly the HomePod is not intended to be an Echo. It's a music appliance. That's fine and there's nothing wrong with that.
However, if Apple wants to be a player in the home automation market, which the existence of HomeKt suggests it does, it will have to respond to ambient interfaces like the Echo. Apple may choose not to do that, which again is fine, but then Neil will probably be right about Apple not really being anything more than a microniche player in that arena.
I suspect Apple plans to do more in this area and the HomePod is just a safe toe dipped in the water. Apple probably won't make $49 Dot equivalents, but it might offer something in between that and the HomePod.
As an aside, that Apple is successful despite being a smaller player in many markets is great for Apple but sometimes sucks for me. I don't really care whether Apple has more money than God, I care if I can use the product to accomplish the tasks that matter to me. Most of the time I can, usually much better than I could with an alternative product. Other times Apple's small market share is a hinderance, like when suppliers don't bother creating a macOS version of software I need. The same is true of home automation. At this point, Apple's microscopic market share makes it more difficult for me to build the system I want because so few devices are compatible.
To me Siri has been absolutely terrible. Which is frustrating because its promise is so great.
In order for Siri to become useful it needs to improve vastly (which a company like Apple should be able to pull off for sure).
1. Context awareness / intent 2. Truly available to all developers. 3. Better exposure of what Siri understands. 4. Better feedback
So let’s start with (1), this is probably the hardest to pull of from an engineering stancepoint. It requires a deeper integration in the operating system and some serious machine learning to pull off. For example, if I say “play music”, currently Siri opens up Apple Music. Which I don’t use. Instead Siri should understand I use Spotify all the time and play music there. Same for Waze and versus Apple Maps. This brings me to (2): I find Apple to be arrogant and short-sighted not to allow other developers to use Siri to power their software to the full extend. They do ‘semi open up’ Siri, but not in all categories of apps and they are making sure they put their own products first, which in the end hurts their own customers. Back to (1). Even more so, Siri is not aware of context. Let’s say I’m getting a text message from person John. I would like to say “create calendar invite for tomorrow at noon and notify John”. Linking data like that should be possible! And if the calendar is already full, Siri should ask me what to do next. My answer could be “use the next available time slot” or “schedule to the day after instead”. Siri doesn’t really do all that. Because Siri fails so much at this I’m hesitant to even use it.
(3) It’s not very clear what Siri ‘gets’. I would like to be able to learn what Siri understands, especially with third party software installed using Siri, and/or make Siri smarter by learning how I interact. Communication is a two way street, yet Siri is unable to adapt to each individual person. Instead we have to obey to her way of thinking, while it really should be the other way around.
(4) Siri is really bad at providing answers. In many occasions a question leads Siri to respond by saying “I found the following on the internet, take a look” and then listing websites. That’s absurd. The whole idea of a voice assistant is... voice. I don’t want web links, I want her to provide an answer in voice! Google does a much better job at that I heard. And witch context awareness I want her to adjust her feedback based on follow up questions and additional parameters that I provide.
Apple should have been in this market first. Siri is consistently terrible and it’s embarrasing for them that Amazon have come from no where to create this whole Echo/AI market. I just can’t understand what Apple and Google are doing with all their money and knowledge. They are both now playing catch up to Amazon? A shopping store.
I hope Apple intend to do something more than just look out the windows in their new campus.
Stop with the trolling about Siri. You have no clue about Siri or its capabilities.
REALLY?! Seriously? You're defending Siri? Have you even TRIED anything else?
We recently got a new TV system in our house that includes voice control, which renewed my interest in Siri. Aside from being MUCH more picky about how I phrase my requests compared to even just a stupid cable box, every fourth or fifth request to Siri fails. "Shuffle the playlist Xmas" worked this morning, but when I said the same thing this afternoon, Siri responded "I can't do that." I repeated the request, word for word, and Siri replied with something about no such playlist exists. I tried a third time, same words, and it worked. It would have been faster to scroll through screens/menus.
TV: "Delete this show." Done. Siri on Apple TV: "Delete this show." Can't do that.
TV: "Zoo." Brings up TV listings, recordings, On Demand, and Netflix. Siri on Apple TV: "Zoo." Shows me links to buy it on the iTunes store, with no mention of the three seasons sitting on my local system with Home Sharing on. I can bring them up manually by choosing "Computers / TV shows" but Siri doesn't reveal them.
"Directions to the nearest Home Depot." Google Maps: "Go north on Boundary Road for fifteen kilometres. Stay in the right lane." Apple Maps via Siri: "I found four Home Depots near you. Which one would you like?" Following up with "Whichever one is closest!" does not work.
It goes on and on and I could fill pages here with examples but I'm tired of typing and I think the point is made. Siri is not "useless" but is not NEARLY as comprehensive, capable, or even reliable as other, similar services. I'd rather have Siri than not, but it would not be my first choice for a high-quality, enjoyable, easy-to-use control system.
Sounds like you have similar issues as I do. It is infuriating when the most common answer I get for anything is "I can't do that" even when you know damn well that it can.
The other is having no sense of context whatsoever. Siri tells you it found something on the web, you ask it to read that to you, and it doesn't know what you want.
Comments
How did amazon beat both Apple and Google to the punch. I love my Apple gear and dont mind paying a premium, but I do need it to do simple things that it cant seem to do at the minute. If Apple dont get this sorted out quickly, I might just start using the Amazon system. HomePod doesn't seem to have taken off very well.
Gary.
All they expect is Apple’s security. However, as that’ll cost a bit more, companies don’t bother.
Only Apple care about your home not being hacked, other companies just care about your money.
The biggest threat to Apple, Samsung, and Google is Amazon. I expect Jeff Bezos to put out a Prime Phone within a few years. Amazon isn't building a 2nd Headquarters just because they want to sell more books. (J.B. probably decided to go "thermonuclear" on Apple when they did iBooks). Google were fools to make Android open system - too easy for Amazon to fork it.
How can you say HomePod hasn’t taken off very well when it is not even available to purchase? What unreleased products would you say have taken off well?
Every service takes some time to initialize. Weather is not exception. On the other hand that Siri example disproves yourself by showing how Siri is fast in responding instantaneously to your question. Is that Siri’s fault if weather data comes slowly from the service provider? That is most probably because of your crappy connection.
Also.. siri on the watch is very frustrating, especially considering that it's Apple's answer to cheap alexa/google home devices. I have the series two and I get the "I'll tap you when I'm ready" all the time, even when I'm on my home wifi network. And even when my phone isn't on me I'll look for it rather than play Russian roulette with siri on the watch.
Which also brings another problem, Amazon doesn’t have much of or any design chops. The echos are nice but I’ve never heard anyone describe them as good looking. A third problem I can see see is customer service. Where does one go to service a broken Amazon product. I know some places like New York offer same day delivery but that’s only a few big markets. Also what about outside of US, Canada just recently got Prime and the ability to buy the Echoes.
We recently got a new TV system in our house that includes voice control, which renewed my interest in Siri. Aside from being MUCH more picky about how I phrase my requests compared to even just a stupid cable box, every fourth or fifth request to Siri fails. "Shuffle the playlist Xmas" worked this morning, but when I said the same thing this afternoon, Siri responded "I can't do that." I repeated the request, word for word, and Siri replied with something about no such playlist exists. I tried a third time, same words, and it worked. It would have been faster to scroll through screens/menus.
TV: "Delete this show." Done.
Siri on Apple TV: "Delete this show." Can't do that.
TV: "Zoo." Brings up TV listings, recordings, On Demand, and Netflix.
Siri on Apple TV: "Zoo." Shows me links to buy it on the iTunes store, with no mention of the three seasons sitting on my local system with Home Sharing on. I can bring them up manually by choosing "Computers / TV shows" but Siri doesn't reveal them.
"Directions to the nearest Home Depot."
Google Maps: "Go north on Boundary Road for fifteen kilometres. Stay in the right lane."
Apple Maps via Siri: "I found four Home Depots near you. Which one would you like?" Following up with "Whichever one is closest!" does not work.
It goes on and on and I could fill pages here with examples but I'm tired of typing and I think the point is made. Siri is not "useless" but is not NEARLY as comprehensive, capable, or even reliable as other, similar services. I'd rather have Siri than not, but it would not be my first choice for a high-quality, enjoyable, easy-to-use control system.
All true. So is what Neil said.
Apple will not achieve penetration in the home automation market with the HomePod. It's too big and expensive to become a popular interface point.
Now, clearly the HomePod is not intended to be an Echo. It's a music appliance. That's fine and there's nothing wrong with that.
However, if Apple wants to be a player in the home automation market, which the existence of HomeKt suggests it does, it will have to respond to ambient interfaces like the Echo. Apple may choose not to do that, which again is fine, but then Neil will probably be right about Apple not really being anything more than a microniche player in that arena.
I suspect Apple plans to do more in this area and the HomePod is just a safe toe dipped in the water. Apple probably won't make $49 Dot equivalents, but it might offer something in between that and the HomePod.
As an aside, that Apple is successful despite being a smaller player in many markets is great for Apple but sometimes sucks for me. I don't really care whether Apple has more money than God, I care if I can use the product to accomplish the tasks that matter to me. Most of the time I can, usually much better than I could with an alternative product. Other times Apple's small market share is a hinderance, like when suppliers don't bother creating a macOS version of software I need. The same is true of home automation. At this point, Apple's microscopic market share makes it more difficult for me to build the system I want because so few devices are compatible.
To me Siri has been absolutely terrible. Which is frustrating because its promise is so great.
In order for Siri to become useful it needs to improve vastly (which a company like Apple should be able to pull off for sure).
1. Context awareness / intent
2. Truly available to all developers.
3. Better exposure of what Siri understands.
4. Better feedback
So let’s start with (1), this is probably the hardest to pull of from an engineering stancepoint. It requires a deeper integration in the operating system and some serious machine learning to pull off.
For example, if I say “play music”, currently Siri opens up Apple Music. Which I don’t use. Instead Siri should understand I use Spotify all the time and play music there. Same for Waze and versus Apple Maps.
This brings me to (2): I find Apple to be arrogant and short-sighted not to allow other developers to use Siri to power their software to the full extend. They do ‘semi open up’ Siri, but not in all categories of apps and they are making sure they put their own products first, which in the end hurts their own customers.
Back to (1). Even more so, Siri is not aware of context. Let’s say I’m getting a text message from person John. I would like to say “create calendar invite for tomorrow at noon and notify John”. Linking data like that should be possible! And if the calendar is already full, Siri should ask me what to do next. My answer could be “use the next available time slot” or “schedule to the day after instead”. Siri doesn’t really do all that. Because Siri fails so much at this I’m hesitant to even use it.
(3) It’s not very clear what Siri ‘gets’. I would like to be able to learn what Siri understands, especially with third party software installed using Siri, and/or make Siri smarter by learning how I interact. Communication is a two way street, yet Siri is unable to adapt to each individual person. Instead we have to obey to her way of thinking, while it really should be the other way around.
(4) Siri is really bad at providing answers. In many occasions a question leads Siri to respond by saying “I found the following on the internet, take a look” and then listing websites. That’s absurd. The whole idea of a voice assistant is... voice. I don’t want web links, I want her to provide an answer in voice! Google does a much better job at that I heard. And witch context awareness I want her to adjust her feedback based on follow up questions and additional parameters that I provide.