Giving us more prescribed hot phrases as opposed to actual natural voice recognition is a terrible workaround. I don’t want to remember their canned trigger I want to pick my own. They don’t mention find my keys can’t sldo be stated Siri look for my keys or Siri I can’t find my keys and in and on.
And what about ditching the branded naming contrivance or allowing followed up commands based in simplistic similar context?
Still hot hot garbage folks - and people are catching on. It’s do bad I put an echo dot in my car and have abandoned the “feature” all together.
Im not the only one. They will see. The horse has left the barn and they’re all standing around in a circle jerk congratulating themselves and pretending it’s a secret.
Surprise! MS Office.
Surprise! Windows 1995 in every PC.
Surprise! Palm Pilot.
Surprise! Configurable Custimizable cheaper PCs.
Surprise! Android.
Surprise! Alexa.
Theres something fundamentally wrong with your operation if your competitors are able to thwart ur innovations by usurping your ideas or stealing them this many times and bringing them to market for less money this many times.
Unbelievable.
Whats worse I couldn’t switch to Android even if I tried. They’ve built a system so closed and forced the user to become so dependent upon the IPhone and the App Store it borders on entrapment and the cost or inconvience of that effort is too much to endure in a consumer product that should never have become as important as it has...
But here we are again
Apple Insider seriously needs to change that worthless "Informative" button back to "Dislike". That's what that button really is, as can be seen from the fact that you can't mark a post as both Liked and Informative. Without a "Dislike" button, we instead get a bunch of short replies commenting on the inanity of some poster.
Giving us more prescribed hot phrases as opposed to actual natural voice recognition is a terrible workaround. I don’t want to remember their canned trigger I want to pick my own. They don’t mention find my keys can’t sldo be stated Siri look for my keys or Siri I can’t find my keys and in and on.
And what about ditching the branded naming contrivance or allowing followed up commands based in simplistic similar context?
Still hot hot garbage folks - and people are catching on. It’s do bad I put an echo dot in my car and have abandoned the “feature” all together.
Im not the only one. They will see. The horse has left the barn and they’re all standing around in a circle jerk congratulating themselves and pretending it’s a secret.
Surprise! MS Office.
Surprise! Windows 1995 in every PC.
Surprise! Palm Pilot.
Surprise! Configurable Custimizable cheaper PCs.
Surprise! Android.
Surprise! Alexa.
Theres something fundamentally wrong with your operation if your competitors are able to thwart ur innovations by usurping your ideas or stealing them this many times and bringing them to market for less money this many times.
Unbelievable.
Whats worse I couldn’t switch to Android even if I tried. They’ve built a system so closed and forced the user to become so dependent upon the IPhone and the App Store it borders on entrapment and the cost or inconvience of that effort is too much to endure in a consumer product that should never have become as important as it has...
But here we are again
Apple Insider seriously needs to change that worthless "Informative" button back to "Dislike". That's what that button really is, as can be seen from the fact that you can't mark a post as both Liked and Informative. Without a "Dislike" button, we instead get a bunch of short replies commenting on the inanity of some poster.
Yeah, to be honest, this is why I spend more time on ArsTechnica these days. The dislike button would mean that the original garbage posted would get voted into oblivion pretty quickly, and the forum would not get filled up with replies to what is basically a lobotomy diary.
--and ffs, please allow us to shut siri up. I don't need some pseudo-clever reply EVERY SINGLE TIME.. just do the thing. I don't need to hear siri tell me over and over "I'll get right on that" "there you go" "home sweet home," on and on..
No.
This is not going to happen for reasons that were discussed a few weeks back.
The “pseudo-clever reply” is Siri telling you that she’s listening. It is a very simple audio cue to let you know that stuff you say now is going back to Apple.
Likewise, if you invoke Siri by accident (as she does mishear things I say that sound like “Hey Siri” such as the way I pronounce “High Sierra” for example) then she responds with “Hmmm?” To let you know she is listening.
If Alexa did this then the folk who discovered she was sending snippets of their private conversation to random folk in their contact list would have realised that she had been invoked unintentionally.
This stuff doesn't make a lot of sense to folk who post things like:
Disappointing, this in my opinion makes Siri look dumber. We have to teach her what we want....
which is why this is a developer conference, and not a cheese and wine evening. Having to instruct Siri as to what voice command does what is no surprise to anyone with a bit of technical nonce. I would like to see any AI work out how to start 'Start my evening routine' without a clue as to what my routine evening looks like.
While folk wallow in their disappointment that Apple didn't announce any hardware at a software conference, they tend to miss patterns that seems to be cropping up again and again. (I think Daniel might have picked up on this though). Apple is looking at the way people work with devices from both a design perspective and an AI perspective. They've talked about examining the workflow of their professional customers to find patterns that will be useful in designing hardware and software going forward. Dark mode: useful for designers and late workers; desktop stacks: they've finally decided that a screen full of icons needs to be arranged to work better. Lots of changes to the Finder to make quick edits more accessible.
Finding a picture of a group. Offering to send it to everyone Siri identifies in the group. Asking the recipients if they would like to share their photos from the same event to the same people in the picture.
Likewise with Siri, folk only concentrate on what they can see (or hear): the voice interface. The whole keynote demonstrated that Siri runs much deeper than the voice. Siri is the engine that will be working behind the scenes examining stuff you're doing and seeing if there's any way to help with that. If you send the same email message at the same time at a certain location, then Siri will see what you're doing and prompt you. Are you leaving the office to head for the manufacturing plant. You did that last week, so Siri can ask if you would like a taxi (because you've done this every day for the past week).
Now this Shortcuts thing is very exciting but there are few details that need fleshing out:
Can it handle variations of the key phrase? This is where the learning comes in (not, as has been suggested, some sort of omniscient clairvoyance where it can work out that "Hey, Sir, the wife's out" means that it should automatically switch to Babestation without you having told it what that means). Once Siri knows what "Start my evening routine" means, then I would expect it to work with sensible variations without any prompting: "Evening routine" should work, and so should "I would like to start the routine for the evening". That's where the AI should should come in.
How does shortcuts work with parameters? I have a basic workflow that logs my water intake. I would like to say something like: "Hey Siri, log 4 pints to my water intake." And if I just say: "Hey Siri, log my water intake" then Siri should ask me how many pints. "Okay, I have logged 4 pints"
Context I was thinking that Siri needs a secondary keyword for a follow-on command. For example, after executing the initial 'Hey Siri' then listen at for 'Now,' as the beginning of the secondary command within the same context. But over the past few weeks I've become less sure about the whole context thing. I can already say stuff like 'play that last track again' and Siri understands what I mean. And when I send a text message using Siri, I tell her who I want to send it to and then she asks me what I want to say. So I think what we need is a way for these shortcut workflows to ask for information when they need it, and perhaps a way for the output of one workflow to feed into another: "Hey Siri. Get me that email I sent to Mike this morning." "Got it" "Now forward it to Dave"
The object passed between the workflows (Get, and Forward is called it.)
Anyway, I've drifted again. The point is that voice commands are only a small part of Siri; the real meat is AI-based automation: seeing patterns in what you're doing and being there when you need them done. The voice thing is not so great when you're outside, and in many cases is less efficient than just doing something on the screen. It's not voice; it's prediction.
Disappointing, this in my opinion makes Siri look dumber. We have to teach her what we want....
Nope.
Siri suggestions
A quicker way to do the things you do most often. As Siri learns your routines, you’ll get suggested shortcuts for just what you need, at just the right time, on the Lock screen or in search.
I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer, and I’m sure I will use these new Siri features (and enjoy them), but this is exactly what I was afraid of, Apple tacking on a somewhat useful Siri feature without addressing its core, basic functionality, which is still horribly lacking.
Given the state of Siri at this time, I was more hoping, rather than expecting, a significant overhaul, but it is still dissapointing after 7+ years in development. I hope Apple is hard at work right now on making Siri actually usable. People are going to run into the same frustrations using this feature as they have been with the current Siri. And let’s be honest, I doubt most “normal” consumers are going to bother setting up the shortcuts, as cool as they are.
The deficit in basic functionality is apparent to anyone that actually uses Siri regularly, except for those that make a concerted effort to adapt themselves to Siri’s strict limitations, which is wildly impractical for the average “normal” user. This is particularly disappointing for a company that should be at the forefront and way ahead of the pack in anything related to the intersection of technology and the humanities.
Here’s a list of the basic frustrations that have been pissing me off on a nearly daily basis, and I know I’m not the only one (fair warning, this list is a copy/paste from a previous post):
-have halfway decent comprehension of what is said
-don't make things even worse by making wild, completely ridiculous guesses if siri doesn't understand what it said
-have a little bit of the context awareness promised at launch
-have at least a tiny bit of intelligence, for instance, don't cut me off when I'm halfway through dictating a phone number, then try to call "97354" and then tell me "this doesn't appear to be a working number." No shit. As another person mentioned, don't cut me off halfway through dictating a reminder. In 75% or more of my attempts to add reminders, I have to put them in or correct them with type.
-have a TINY bit of flexibility and humanism. for example, have more than one exact way to refer to something. should be common sense, but apparently not to the geniuses that have been in charge of siri for 6 years..for example, if I'm trying to play, hypothetically, Dancemix 4, allow the user to say "play Dancemix 4", or "play Dancemix album 4", or "play Dancemix volume 4". It's absurd that siri will only recognize one of those options.
-be able to do more than one task at one time, shouldn't be that difficult after 7 years
-use info from our own device and icloud to inform queries. don't give me an address that's 30-300 miles away when the actual address, which is in my contacts, is 5 miles away.
-if I ask siri to so something that requires the phone to be unlocked, DONT cancel the query and make me re-do it after I unlock the phone
-have a back-up, visual interface for idevices so you don't have to shout at siri for every little thing (e.g. I don't want to pause the music on my homepod when I want to know the details of the song I'm listening to or adjust the volume).
--and ffs, please allow us to shut siri up. I don't need some pseudo-clever reply EVERY SINGLE TIME.. just do the thing. I don't need to hear siri tell me over and over "I'll get right on that" "there you go" "home sweet home," on and on.
I would not put it that black & white, but I agree that if the shortcuts are all we are getting as Siri improvements in 2018, the feature gap with the competition will only grow.
I really hope that Apple will address Siri's shortcomings in the next couple of months
It sounds good, but from a first glance it looks like it shifts a lot of the onus on the user. I hope there's going to be the option for apps to bundle Siri shortcuts in, or for the Shortcut app to have some sort of suggested shortcut catalogue or a something, a bit like how IFTTT has preconfigured recipes.
--and ffs, please allow us to shut siri up. I don't need some pseudo-clever reply EVERY SINGLE TIME.. just do the thing. I don't need to hear siri tell me over and over "I'll get right on that" "there you go" "home sweet home," on and on..
No.
This is not going to happen for reasons that were discussed a few weeks back.
The “pseudo-clever reply” is Siri telling you that she’s listening. It is a very simple audio cue to let you know that stuff you say now is going back to Apple.
Likewise, if you invoke Siri by accident (as she does mishear things I say that sound like “Hey Siri” such as the way I pronounce “High Sierra” for example) then she responds with “Hmmm?” To let you know she is listening.
If Alexa did this then the folk who discovered she was sending snippets of their private conversation to random folk in their contact list would have realised that she had been invoked unintentionally.
I think I understand what you're getting at, but I disagree. I don't think you need verbal cues every time. And even if that is something that really is necessary, at least have the option to have more brief responses like, "ok," or "done" or "lights are on." Siri does have some short, concise replies, but all of times she tries to be clever or cute, it's interesting the first 1-2 times, then after that it gets more and more and more obnoxious.
You're assuming amazon's explanation is truthful.. But even if that was the case, the alexa thing seems like a special circumstance. Having verbal confirmation for something important, like sending a message or paying someone, would of course be necessary.
I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer, and I’m sure I will use these new Siri features (and enjoy them), but this is exactly what I was afraid of, Apple tacking on a somewhat useful Siri feature without addressing its core, basic functionality, which is still horribly lacking.
Given the state of Siri at this time, I was more hoping, rather than expecting, a significant overhaul, but it is still dissapointing after 7+ years in development. I hope Apple is hard at work right now on making Siri actually usable. People are going to run into the same frustrations using this feature as they have been with the current Siri. And let’s be honest, I doubt most “normal” consumers are going to bother setting up the shortcuts, as cool as they are.
The deficit in basic functionality is apparent to anyone that actually uses Siri regularly, except for those that make a concerted effort to adapt themselves to Siri’s strict limitations, which is wildly impractical for the average “normal” user. This is particularly disappointing for a company that should be at the forefront and way ahead of the pack in anything related to the intersection of technology and the humanities.
Here’s a list of the basic frustrations that have been pissing me off on a nearly daily basis, and I know I’m not the only one (fair warning, this list is a copy/paste from a previous post):
-have halfway decent comprehension of what is said
-don't make things even worse by making wild, completely ridiculous guesses if siri doesn't understand what it said
-have a little bit of the context awareness promised at launch
-have at least a tiny bit of intelligence, for instance, don't cut me off when I'm halfway through dictating a phone number, then try to call "97354" and then tell me "this doesn't appear to be a working number." No shit. As another person mentioned, don't cut me off halfway through dictating a reminder. In 75% or more of my attempts to add reminders, I have to put them in or correct them with type.
-have a TINY bit of flexibility and humanism. for example, have more than one exact way to refer to something. should be common sense, but apparently not to the geniuses that have been in charge of siri for 6 years..for example, if I'm trying to play, hypothetically, Dancemix 4, allow the user to say "play Dancemix 4", or "play Dancemix album 4", or "play Dancemix volume 4". It's absurd that siri will only recognize one of those options.
-be able to do more than one task at one time, shouldn't be that difficult after 7 years
-use info from our own device and icloud to inform queries. don't give me an address that's 30-300 miles away when the actual address, which is in my contacts, is 5 miles away.
-if I ask siri to so something that requires the phone to be unlocked, DONT cancel the query and make me re-do it after I unlock the phone
-have a back-up, visual interface for idevices so you don't have to shout at siri for every little thing (e.g. I don't want to pause the music on my homepod when I want to know the details of the song I'm listening to or adjust the volume).
--and ffs, please allow us to shut siri up. I don't need some pseudo-clever reply EVERY SINGLE TIME.. just do the thing. I don't need to hear siri tell me over and over "I'll get right on that" "there you go" "home sweet home," on and on.
I would not put it that black & white, but I agree that if the shortcuts are all we are getting as Siri improvements in 2018, the feature gap with the competition will only grow.
I really hope that Apple will address Siri's shortcomings in the next couple of months
But it’s not all:
Siri suggestions
A quicker way to do the things you do most often. As Siri learns your routines, you’ll get suggested shortcuts for just what you need, at just the right time, on the Lock screen or in search.
Add to Siri
Add shortcuts to Siri to run them with your voice on your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or HomePod.
New Shortcuts app
Create or customize your own shortcuts to run multiple steps at once. Get started with examples from the gallery and personalize with steps from across your apps.
Shortcuts API
App developers can work with Siri to run shortcuts via a new SiriKit API.
Motorsports
Get live standings, schedules, rosters, and stats.
Translation
Translate phrases into many more languages, with support for over 40 language pairs.
Celebrity facts
Check facts about celebrities, such as “What is Gillian Flynn’s latest novel?” or “Where was Amy Adams born?”
Food knowledge
Ask Siri questions about food and get answers from the USDA database, including calories, vitamins, and how healthy a food is overall. For example, ask “How much caffeine in coffee?” or “How healthy is fish?”
Photos Memories search
Use Siri to quickly pull up photos and memories based on people, places, events, time, and keywords of objects and scenes in the photos.
Passwords
Siri can help you search for any password.
Siri notification suggestions
Get suggestions based on how you interact with your notifications, such as which app notifications to deliver prominently and which ones to send to Notification Center.
I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer, and I’m sure I will use these new Siri features (and enjoy them), but this is exactly what I was afraid of, Apple tacking on a somewhat useful Siri feature without addressing its core, basic functionality, which is still horribly lacking.
Given the state of Siri at this time, I was more hoping, rather than expecting, a significant overhaul, but it is still dissapointing after 7+ years in development. I hope Apple is hard at work right now on making Siri actually usable.People are going to run into the same frustrations using this feature as they have been with the current Siri. And let’s be honest, I doubt most “normal” consumers are going to bother setting up the shortcuts, as cool as they are.
The deficit in basic functionality is apparent to anyone that actually uses Siri regularly, except for those that make a concerted effort to adapt themselves to Siri’s strict limitations, which is wildly impractical for the average “normal” user. This is particularly disappointing for a company that should be at the forefront and way ahead of the pack in anything related to the intersection of technology and the humanities.
Here’s a list of the basic frustrations that have been pissing me off on a nearly daily basis, and I know I’m not the only one (fair warning, this list is a copy/paste from a previous post):
-have halfway decent comprehension of what is said
-don't make things even worse by making wild, completely ridiculous guesses if siri doesn't understand what it said
-have a little bit of the context awareness promised at launch
-have at least a tiny bit of intelligence, for instance, don't cut me off when I'm halfway through dictating a phone number, then try to call "97354" and then tell me "this doesn't appear to be a working number." No shit. As another person mentioned, don't cut me off halfway through dictating a reminder. In 75% or more of my attempts to add reminders, I have to put them in or correct them with type.
-have a TINY bit of flexibility and humanism. for example, have more than one exact way to refer to something. should be common sense, but apparently not to the geniuses that have been in charge of siri for 6 years..for example, if I'm trying to play, hypothetically, Dancemix 4, allow the user to say "play Dancemix 4", or "play Dancemix album 4", or "play Dancemix volume 4". It's absurd that siri will only recognize one of those options.
-be able to do more than one task at one time, shouldn't be that difficult after 7 years
-use info from our own device and icloud to inform queries. don't give me an address that's 30-300 miles away when the actual address, which is in my contacts, is 5 miles away.
-if I ask siri to so something that requires the phone to be unlocked, DONT cancel the query and make me re-do it after I unlock the phone
-have a back-up, visual interface for idevices so you don't have to shout at siri for every little thing (e.g. I don't want to pause the music on my homepod when I want to know the details of the song I'm listening to or adjust the volume).
--and ffs, please allow us to shut siri up. I don't need some pseudo-clever reply EVERY SINGLE TIME.. just do the thing. I don't need to hear siri tell me over and over "I'll get right on that" "there you go" "home sweet home," on and on..
So let me get this straight. You go on a 600 word plus rant to admonish the many failings of Siri such as :
strict limitations
wildly impractical
particularly disappointing (sic)
basic frustrations
halfway decent comprehension
make things even worse
making wild, completely ridiculous guesses
doesn't understand what it said
tiny bit of intelligence
TINY bit of flexibility and humanism
And then you insist on skipping any confirmation of this wildly impractical, particularly disappointing with halfway comprehension making things worse with wild, completely ridiculous guesses that doesn't understand what is said digital assistant with that tiny bit of intelligence and … just do the thing.
Wow, you do love living dangerously don’t you. Be careful what you wish for or you might end up regrettingly flipping back that switch and yearning for a TINY bit of flexibility and humanism after an unfortunate Alexa-ish just do the thing-ish blunder was sent at work.
_____ Edit : Sorry, that 'Heading 2' format sure got a lot louder from Edit to Live, this editor is clearly not WYSIWYG.
It sounds good, but from a first glance it looks like it shifts a lot of the onus on the user. I hope there's going to be the option for apps to bundle Siri shortcuts in, or for the Shortcut app to have some sort of suggested shortcut catalogue or a something, a bit like how IFTTT has preconfigured recipes.
"Shortcuts API App developers can work with Siri to run shortcuts via a new SiriKit API."
New Shortcuts app
Create or customize your own shortcuts to run multiple steps at once. Get started with examples from the gallery and personalize with steps from across your apps.
Siri suggestions
A quicker way to do the things you do most often. As Siri learns your routines, you’ll get suggested shortcuts for just what you need, at just the right time, on the Lock screen or in search."
I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer, and I’m sure I will use these new Siri features (and enjoy them), but this is exactly what I was afraid of, Apple tacking on a somewhat useful Siri feature without addressing its core, basic functionality, which is still horribly lacking.
Given the state of Siri at this time, I was more hoping, rather than expecting, a significant overhaul, but it is still dissapointing after 7+ years in development. I hope Apple is hard at work right now on making Siri actually usable.People are going to run into the same frustrations using this feature as they have been with the current Siri. And let’s be honest, I doubt most “normal” consumers are going to bother setting up the shortcuts, as cool as they are.
The deficit in basic functionality is apparent to anyone that actually uses Siri regularly, except for those that make a concerted effort to adapt themselves to Siri’s strict limitations, which is wildly impractical for the average “normal” user. This is particularly disappointing for a company that should be at the forefront and way ahead of the pack in anything related to the intersection of technology and the humanities.
Here’s a list of the basic frustrations that have been pissing me off on a nearly daily basis, and I know I’m not the only one (fair warning, this list is a copy/paste from a previous post):
-have halfway decent comprehension of what is said
-don't make things even worse by making wild, completely ridiculous guesses if siri doesn't understand what it said
-have a little bit of the context awareness promised at launch
-have at least a tiny bit of intelligence, for instance, don't cut me off when I'm halfway through dictating a phone number, then try to call "97354" and then tell me "this doesn't appear to be a working number." No shit. As another person mentioned, don't cut me off halfway through dictating a reminder. In 75% or more of my attempts to add reminders, I have to put them in or correct them with type.
-have a TINY bit of flexibility and humanism. for example, have more than one exact way to refer to something. should be common sense, but apparently not to the geniuses that have been in charge of siri for 6 years..for example, if I'm trying to play, hypothetically, Dancemix 4, allow the user to say "play Dancemix 4", or "play Dancemix album 4", or "play Dancemix volume 4". It's absurd that siri will only recognize one of those options.
-be able to do more than one task at one time, shouldn't be that difficult after 7 years
-use info from our own device and icloud to inform queries. don't give me an address that's 30-300 miles away when the actual address, which is in my contacts, is 5 miles away.
-if I ask siri to so something that requires the phone to be unlocked, DONT cancel the query and make me re-do it after I unlock the phone
-have a back-up, visual interface for idevices so you don't have to shout at siri for every little thing (e.g. I don't want to pause the music on my homepod when I want to know the details of the song I'm listening to or adjust the volume).
--and ffs, please allow us to shut siri up. I don't need some pseudo-clever reply EVERY SINGLE TIME.. just do the thing. I don't need to hear siri tell me over and over "I'll get right on that" "there you go" "home sweet home," on and on..
So let me get this straight. You go on a 600 word plus rant to admonish the many failings of Siri such as :
strict limitations
wildly impractical
particularly disappointing (sic)
basic frustrations
halfway decent comprehension
make things even worse
making wild, completely ridiculous guesses
doesn't understand what it said
tiny bit of intelligence
TINY bit of flexibility and humanism
And then you insist on skipping any confirmation of this wildly impractical, particularly disappointing with halfway comprehension making things worse with wild, completely ridiculous guesses that doesn't understand what is said digital assistant with that tiny bit of intelligence and … just do the thing.
Wow, you do love living dangerously don’t you. Be careful what you wish for or you might end up regrettingly flipping back that switch and yearning for a TINY bit of flexibility and humanism after an unfortunate Alexa-ish just do the thing-ish blunder was sent at work.
_____ Edit : Sorry, that 'Heading 2' format sure got a lot louder from Edit to Live, this editor is clearly not WYSIWYG.
I wasn't sure if I was going to respond, but then I saw a couple people 'liked' your post.
TBH I'm having a hard time understanding what you're trying to say, or what that list you made means. I don't follow it.
I just want siri to work as it's supposed to, as was promised on day 1, and when it doesn't work, don't make it worse by being obnoxious (e.g. cute phrases, wild guesses, etc).
I also find it obnoxious that siri goes through a series of 'cute/clever' replies all the time. It's annoying. Just do the thing, or just say "ok", or if it's something important, like sending info to someone or sending money, of course get verbal confirmation. And if I'm sending a message to Bob, just clarify in simple terms, "is this the message you want to send" and "message sent" (siri actually does the messaging part well already) and don't tell me something like "message sent, loud and clear" or "roger that, message sent" or something else that's going to get annoying after the first two times siri says it. Examples that currently bug me: siri saying "home sweet home" when I activate my "I'm home" scene, or the numerous annoying things she says when I activate my "goodnight" scene.
I'm sure there are lots of people that love that kind of stuff. But it should be fairly easy to see that not everyone, all the time, wants a chipper, loquacious assistant every time they need a thing done.
I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer, and I’m sure I will use these new Siri features (and enjoy them), but this is exactly what I was afraid of, Apple tacking on a somewhat useful Siri feature without addressing its core, basic functionality, which is still horribly lacking.
Given the state of Siri at this time, I was more hoping, rather than expecting, a significant overhaul, but it is still dissapointing after 7+ years in development. I hope Apple is hard at work right now on making Siri actually usable.People are going to run into the same frustrations using this feature as they have been with the current Siri. And let’s be honest, I doubt most “normal” consumers are going to bother setting up the shortcuts, as cool as they are.
The deficit in basic functionality is apparent to anyone that actually uses Siri regularly, except for those that make a concerted effort to adapt themselves to Siri’s strict limitations, which is wildly impractical for the average “normal” user. This is particularly disappointing for a company that should be at the forefront and way ahead of the pack in anything related to the intersection of technology and the humanities.
Here’s a list of the basic frustrations that have been pissing me off on a nearly daily basis, and I know I’m not the only one (fair warning, this list is a copy/paste from a previous post):
-have halfway decent comprehension of what is said
-don't make things even worse by making wild, completely ridiculous guesses if siri doesn't understand what it said
-have a little bit of the context awareness promised at launch
-have at least a tiny bit of intelligence, for instance, don't cut me off when I'm halfway through dictating a phone number, then try to call "97354" and then tell me "this doesn't appear to be a working number." No shit. As another person mentioned, don't cut me off halfway through dictating a reminder. In 75% or more of my attempts to add reminders, I have to put them in or correct them with type.
-have a TINY bit of flexibility and humanism. for example, have more than one exact way to refer to something. should be common sense, but apparently not to the geniuses that have been in charge of siri for 6 years..for example, if I'm trying to play, hypothetically, Dancemix 4, allow the user to say "play Dancemix 4", or "play Dancemix album 4", or "play Dancemix volume 4". It's absurd that siri will only recognize one of those options.
-be able to do more than one task at one time, shouldn't be that difficult after 7 years
-use info from our own device and icloud to inform queries. don't give me an address that's 30-300 miles away when the actual address, which is in my contacts, is 5 miles away.
-if I ask siri to so something that requires the phone to be unlocked, DONT cancel the query and make me re-do it after I unlock the phone
-have a back-up, visual interface for idevices so you don't have to shout at siri for every little thing (e.g. I don't want to pause the music on my homepod when I want to know the details of the song I'm listening to or adjust the volume).
--and ffs, please allow us to shut siri up. I don't need some pseudo-clever reply EVERY SINGLE TIME.. just do the thing. I don't need to hear siri tell me over and over "I'll get right on that" "there you go" "home sweet home," on and on..
So let me get this straight. You go on a 600 word plus rant to admonish the many failings of Siri such as :
strict limitations
wildly impractical
particularly disappointing (sic)
basic frustrations
halfway decent comprehension
make things even worse
making wild, completely ridiculous guesses
doesn't understand what it said
tiny bit of intelligence
TINY bit of flexibility and humanism
And then you insist on skipping any confirmation of this wildly impractical, particularly disappointing with halfway comprehension making things worse with wild, completely ridiculous guesses that doesn't understand what is said digital assistant with that tiny bit of intelligence and … just do the thing.
Wow, you do love living dangerously don’t you. Be careful what you wish for or you might end up regrettingly flipping back that switch and yearning for a TINY bit of flexibility and humanism after an unfortunate Alexa-ish just do the thing-ish blunder was sent at work.
_____ Edit : Sorry, that 'Heading 2' format sure got a lot louder from Edit to Live, this editor is clearly not WYSIWYG.
I wasn't sure if I was going to respond, but then I saw a couple people 'liked' your post.
TBH I'm having a hard time understanding what you're trying to say, or what that list you made means. I don't follow it.
I just want siri to work as it's supposed to, as was promised on day 1, and when it doesn't work, don't make it worse by being obnoxious (e.g. cute phrases, wild guesses, etc).
I also find it obnoxious that siri goes through a series of 'cute/clever' replies all the time. It's annoying. Just do the thing, or just say "ok", or if it's something important, like sending info to someone or sending money, of course get verbal confirmation. And if I'm sending a message to Bob, just clarify in simple terms, "is this the message you want to send" and "message sent" (siri actually does the messaging part well already) and don't tell me something like "message sent, loud and clear" or "roger that, message sent" or something else that's going to get annoying after the first two times siri says it. Examples that currently bug me: siri saying "home sweet home" when I activate my "I'm home" scene, or the numerous annoying things she says when I activate my "goodnight" scene.
I'm sure there are lots of people that love that kind of stuff. But it should be fairly easy to see that not everyone, all the time, wants a chipper, loquacious assistant every time they need a thing done.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to respond either, but you politely mentioned that you didn’t understand, so I feel I do owe you a reply. I thought I made a good point with a touch of whimsical irony while trying to avoid being sarcastic. I’m sorry if I was not clear.
I described the content of the list on the previous line with "You go on a 600 word plus rant to admonish the many failings of Siri such as :".
So the list I made was simply a recap, an enumeration of all the failings you mentioned, a list of your own words I had emphasized in your text, it is a list of your stuff, it is your list. I was frankly surprised to see you didn’t recognize it and couldn’t follow it.
In your very last paragraph, that I wanted to emphasize (and boy did ‘Heading 2’ style emphasize it, sorry for that), you even used an expletive to affirm that you would want to suppress any confirmation before letting it go off and just do the thing that it had interpreted, you know, that horribly unreliable (halfway decent comprehension … completely ridiculous guesses … ), you know, the list. I was struck by, and simply want to make light of, the incongruity between the list of untrustworthiness and the adamant wish to blindly trust. I agree that they can tone down the pseudo-clever, especially after a while, but acting without confirmation is still very risky, as you so eloquently listed. That’s all I was trying to say.
That being said, like you and most commenters here I also just want Siri to work as it’s supposed to and I have dealt with a lot of frustrations through the years. However I believe my patience had an advantage on yours, as I was well aware that it was not promised on day 1, it was announced with great fanfare as a Beta, underlining that most speech to text and natural language processing experts concur that they need lots and lots of samples, that the system will improve with more samples, which is why it was released as a Beta. I’m not sure when it stopped being in Beta but we can agree that after many years of samples it is clear that it still feels like it is and that all the sampling is not enough. It has improved and I use it regularly, yet I also share the frustration of seeing that others have done better.
I don’t disagree with most of your gripes although I’m more forgiving as I still do not anthropomorphize Siri. I have read a few years back that Apple had a more humanlike voice ready from day 1 but they chose the more mechanical one to remind us all that we’re not talking to a human so as to be forgiving. As a programmer I’m all too painfully aware that these seemingly brilliant machines are still incredibly dumb but can be programmed to do clever tricks. The newer techniques amalgamated in the misnomer Artificial Intelligence allow for more sophisticated tricks, but we’re still a long way from HAL, for better or worse.
PS : Siri is designed to proceed after a small pause in speech for our convenience. If you're unsure and there's some hesitation in your request just hold the home button until you're done. I'm not sure what the gesture is on iPhone X.
I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer, and I’m sure I will use these new Siri features (and enjoy them), but this is exactly what I was afraid of, Apple tacking on a somewhat useful Siri feature without addressing its core, basic functionality, which is still horribly lacking.
Given the state of Siri at this time, I was more hoping, rather than expecting, a significant overhaul, but it is still dissapointing after 7+ years in development. I hope Apple is hard at work right now on making Siri actually usable. People are going to run into the same frustrations using this feature as they have been with the current Siri. And let’s be honest, I doubt most “normal” consumers are going to bother setting up the shortcuts, as cool as they are.
I was actually encouraged by this tactic, though you might be right that the majority of users won't use it (thus, not solving the problem).
But, this actually saves a lot of problems for people that are willing to use it. I might even be able to play my 'Favorites' playlist in the car after this!!!
The problem with the A.I. approach, is that it's pretty stupid. It also depends on a huge tree of things going right for any hope of a proper outcome. With an automation, though, all Siri has to do is correctly interpret the voice command and recognize it is one of your automations. That should be pretty simple and reliable. The outcome of this will be reliable, which is the big problem with Siri (or any of the AI assistants).
If you have a reliable way to use voice command to do something, you're more likely to actually use and depend on it. My hope is that maybe Apple has discovered that the AI-path is baloney, and this is their solution. Then it's just a matter of getting the mass-user-base on-board, which is considerably more tricky.
PS : Siri is designed to proceed after a small pause in speech for our convenience. If you're unsure and there's some hesitation in your request just hold the home button until you're done. I'm not sure what the gesture is on iPhone X.
Same but with the sleep/wake button. Learned about this when I'd use Siri to add long strings of numbers when doing my taxes and I'd get cut off mid-stream.
Comments
No.
This is not going to happen for reasons that were discussed a few weeks back.
The “pseudo-clever reply” is Siri telling you that she’s listening. It is a very simple audio cue to let you know that stuff you say now is going back to Apple.
Likewise, if you invoke Siri by accident (as she does mishear things I say that sound like “Hey Siri” such as the way I pronounce “High Sierra” for example) then she responds with “Hmmm?” To let you know she is listening.
If Alexa did this then the folk who discovered she was sending snippets of their private conversation to random folk in their contact list would have realised that she had been invoked unintentionally.
Apple acquired VocalIQ years ago... why haven't they integrated it into Siri????????
VocalIQ makes the knockoff Siri's look like dummies.
which is why this is a developer conference, and not a cheese and wine evening. Having to instruct Siri as to what voice command does what is no surprise to anyone with a bit of technical nonce. I would like to see any AI work out how to start 'Start my evening routine' without a clue as to what my routine evening looks like.
While folk wallow in their disappointment that Apple didn't announce any hardware at a software conference, they tend to miss patterns that seems to be cropping up again and again. (I think Daniel might have picked up on this though). Apple is looking at the way people work with devices from both a design perspective and an AI perspective. They've talked about examining the workflow of their professional customers to find patterns that will be useful in designing hardware and software going forward. Dark mode: useful for designers and late workers; desktop stacks: they've finally decided that a screen full of icons needs to be arranged to work better. Lots of changes to the Finder to make quick edits more accessible.
Finding a picture of a group.
Offering to send it to everyone Siri identifies in the group.
Asking the recipients if they would like to share their photos from the same event to the same people in the picture.
Likewise with Siri, folk only concentrate on what they can see (or hear): the voice interface. The whole keynote demonstrated that Siri runs much deeper than the voice. Siri is the engine that will be working behind the scenes examining stuff you're doing and seeing if there's any way to help with that. If you send the same email message at the same time at a certain location, then Siri will see what you're doing and prompt you. Are you leaving the office to head for the manufacturing plant. You did that last week, so Siri can ask if you would like a taxi (because you've done this every day for the past week).
Now this Shortcuts thing is very exciting but there are few details that need fleshing out:
Can it handle variations of the key phrase?
This is where the learning comes in (not, as has been suggested, some sort of omniscient clairvoyance where it can work out that "Hey, Sir, the wife's out" means that it should automatically switch to Babestation without you having told it what that means). Once Siri knows what "Start my evening routine" means, then I would expect it to work with sensible variations without any prompting: "Evening routine" should work, and so should "I would like to start the routine for the evening". That's where the AI should should come in.
How does shortcuts work with parameters?
I have a basic workflow that logs my water intake. I would like to say something like: "Hey Siri, log 4 pints to my water intake." And if I just say: "Hey Siri, log my water intake" then Siri should ask me how many pints.
"Okay, I have logged 4 pints"
Context
I was thinking that Siri needs a secondary keyword for a follow-on command. For example, after executing the initial 'Hey Siri' then listen at for 'Now,' as the beginning of the secondary command within the same context. But over the past few weeks I've become less sure about the whole context thing. I can already say stuff like 'play that last track again' and Siri understands what I mean. And when I send a text message using Siri, I tell her who I want to send it to and then she asks me what I want to say. So I think what we need is a way for these shortcut workflows to ask for information when they need it, and perhaps a way for the output of one workflow to feed into another:
"Hey Siri. Get me that email I sent to Mike this morning."
"Got it"
"Now forward it to Dave"
The object passed between the workflows (Get, and Forward is called it.)
Anyway, I've drifted again. The point is that voice commands are only a small part of Siri; the real meat is AI-based automation: seeing patterns in what you're doing and being there when you need them done. The voice thing is not so great when you're outside, and in many cases is less efficient than just doing something on the screen. It's not voice; it's prediction.
Siri suggestions
A quicker way to do the things you do most often. As Siri learns your routines, you’ll get suggested shortcuts for just what you need, at just the right time, on the Lock screen or in search.
Siri suggestions
A quicker way to do the things you do most often. As Siri learns your routines, you’ll get suggested shortcuts for just what you need, at just the right time, on the Lock screen or in search.
Add to Siri
Add shortcuts to Siri to run them with your voice on your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or HomePod.
New Shortcuts app
Create or customize your own shortcuts to run multiple steps at once. Get started with examples from the gallery and personalize with steps from across your apps.
Shortcuts API
App developers can work with Siri to run shortcuts via a new SiriKit API.
Motorsports
Get live standings, schedules, rosters, and stats.
Translation
Translate phrases into many more languages, with support for over 40 language pairs.
Celebrity facts
Check facts about celebrities, such as “What is Gillian Flynn’s latest novel?” or “Where was Amy Adams born?”
Food knowledge
Ask Siri questions about food and get answers from the USDA database, including calories, vitamins, and how healthy a food is overall. For example, ask “How much caffeine in coffee?” or “How healthy is fish?”
Photos Memories search
Use Siri to quickly pull up photos and memories based on people, places, events, time, and keywords of objects and scenes in the photos.
Passwords
Siri can help you search for any password.
Siri notification suggestions
Get suggestions based on how you interact with your notifications, such as which app notifications to deliver prominently and which ones to send to Notification Center.
_____
Edit : Sorry, that 'Heading 2' format sure got a lot louder from Edit to Live, this editor is clearly not WYSIWYG.
App developers can work with Siri to run shortcuts via a new SiriKit API."
New Shortcuts app
Create or customize your own shortcuts to run multiple steps at once. Get started with examples from the gallery and personalize with steps from across your apps.
Siri suggestions
A quicker way to do the things you do most often. As Siri learns your routines, you’ll get suggested shortcuts for just what you need, at just the right time, on the Lock screen or in search."
I wasn’t sure if I was going to respond either, but you politely mentioned that you didn’t understand, so I feel I do owe you a reply. I thought I made a good point with a touch of whimsical irony while trying to avoid being sarcastic. I’m sorry if I was not clear.
I described the content of the list on the previous line with "You go on a 600 word plus rant to admonish the many failings of Siri such as :".
So the list I made was simply a recap, an enumeration of all the failings you mentioned, a list of your own words I had emphasized in your text, it is a list of your stuff, it is your list. I was frankly surprised to see you didn’t recognize it and couldn’t follow it.
In your very last paragraph, that I wanted to emphasize (and boy did ‘Heading 2’ style emphasize it, sorry for that), you even used an expletive to affirm that you would want to suppress any confirmation before letting it go off and just do the thing that it had interpreted, you know, that horribly unreliable (halfway decent comprehension … completely ridiculous guesses … ), you know, the list. I was struck by, and simply want to make light of, the incongruity between the list of untrustworthiness and the adamant wish to blindly trust. I agree that they can tone down the pseudo-clever, especially after a while, but acting without confirmation is still very risky, as you so eloquently listed. That’s all I was trying to say.
That being said, like you and most commenters here I also just want Siri to work as it’s supposed to and I have dealt with a lot of frustrations through the years. However I believe my patience had an advantage on yours, as I was well aware that it was not promised on day 1, it was announced with great fanfare as a Beta, underlining that most speech to text and natural language processing experts concur that they need lots and lots of samples, that the system will improve with more samples, which is why it was released as a Beta. I’m not sure when it stopped being in Beta but we can agree that after many years of samples it is clear that it still feels like it is and that all the sampling is not enough. It has improved and I use it regularly, yet I also share the frustration of seeing that others have done better.
I don’t disagree with most of your gripes although I’m more forgiving as I still do not anthropomorphize Siri. I have read a few years back that Apple had a more humanlike voice ready from day 1 but they chose the more mechanical one to remind us all that we’re not talking to a human so as to be forgiving. As a programmer I’m all too painfully aware that these seemingly brilliant machines are still incredibly dumb but can be programmed to do clever tricks. The newer techniques amalgamated in the misnomer Artificial Intelligence allow for more sophisticated tricks, but we’re still a long way from HAL, for better or worse.
PS : Siri is designed to proceed after a small pause in speech for our convenience. If you're unsure and there's some hesitation in your request just hold the home button until you're done. I'm not sure what the gesture is on iPhone X.
But, this actually saves a lot of problems for people that are willing to use it. I might even be able to play my 'Favorites' playlist in the car after this!!!
The problem with the A.I. approach, is that it's pretty stupid. It also depends on a huge tree of things going right for any hope of a proper outcome. With an automation, though, all Siri has to do is correctly interpret the voice command and recognize it is one of your automations. That should be pretty simple and reliable. The outcome of this will be reliable, which is the big problem with Siri (or any of the AI assistants).
If you have a reliable way to use voice command to do something, you're more likely to actually use and depend on it. My hope is that maybe Apple has discovered that the AI-path is baloney, and this is their solution. Then it's just a matter of getting the mass-user-base on-board, which is considerably more tricky.