I use Siri on my watch, iPhone and HomePod with generally excellent results. In particular, I am amazed at how far I can be from the HomePod and it still picks up my request accurately. But I typically ask for things like sending text messages and turning HomeKit devices off and on, not general queries. I find Siri extremely useful and more than accurate enough.
For another example: I ask what the temperature is in Canterbury, and despite actually being in Canterbury, UK it decides I'd rather know the temperature in Canterbury, New Zealand. Same if I ask for directions from anywhere in the UK to Canterbury. It tries to get directions to Canterbury, NZ, and then says it can't get directions to there. Brilliant.
This error happens to me too, and it is particularly maddening. I'm not sure if it is just more prevalent outside the US and the Siri team is working there first so it isn't reflected in this testing or what. Siri should prioritize the closest (geographical) matches with navigational based queries and if she really can't decide, then she should follow the request up with a request to refine/clarify like she does for contact queries which are too unspecific for her.
It is really annoying. It happens in Maps too when typing, zooming to places that're miles away despite there being local results. Often when searching locally it zooms out to show the whole of Europe and most of Africa, but returns two results. Stupid. It did used to ask for clarification, but that seems to have been lost.
The other thing that would be great for Siri, and navigation in general, is native pronunciation for foreign (as respects to your device setting) places and streets.
Definitely, it knows where you are, it knows what a street name is and it knows your native language. It would be a simple addition. It makes a massive screw up on any foreign name that's more than a few letters.
2) One this that Amazon does that I love that I don't think anyone else does is send you a weekly email (on Friday) with new commands, topical requests to make, and Skills to try. There is no visual UI so you will forget commands. I'm sure there are hundreds of useful Siri commands that I've ever never known about or I tried years ago but after they failed forgot about them and never tried them again. I wish Apple had something like this because I'd like to utilize Siri more than setting a timer when I put money in the meter.
We already get that, just it's once a year, is 3 new commands and is called WWDC.
Apple bleats on about adding AI to Siri and it improving the accuracy, but it's definitely got worse recently. It usually hears correctly but rarely understands.
The other thing that would be great for Siri, and navigation in general, is native pronunciation for foreign (as respects to your device setting) places and streets. When I'm in Germany I would like for Siri to pronounce Straße the way she would if my device were set to German and Calle the way she would if my device were set to Spanish when im in Spain. It is pretty distracting while driving when you are looking for a turnoff and Siri mangles the names of everything. It is particularly dumb because you know she pronounces it correctly for the people who's device is set for that language.
Huh?! So, you would want Siri (or any of the others) to automatically bypass your default language choice. Yeah, that wouldn't piss people off.
It isn't a matter of "by-passing" my native language, it is pronouncing a "foreign" proper name correctly where there is no English equivalent. For example, Bayern has a direct English name: Bavaria, and I would expect Siri to say Bavaria when my language is set to English. However, there is a street in Augsburg called Bürgermeister-Ackermann-Straße that has no English equivalent name. Siri pronounces this street name so terribly to the point that I have no idea what street she is talking about without taking my eyes off the road because I have only ever heard the correct pronunciation. She says something like "burger-meester-Ayker-man-strass". Another example is Calle de Embajadores in Madrid, Siri pronounces this like "Ca-ley D Emba-Ja-door-ees".
This could simply be done as a preference like Temperature scale in the Language and region settings. That way those folks who wish only to speak " 'murican-english" (this is more a mindset than has anything to do with language ability because plenty of Americans can and do correctly pronounce "jalapeño" even if they don't speak any foreign languages) can continue to hear silly pronunciations if they wish.
If only there were a military application of voice operated technology then we might see technological leaps in the same way as has happened with drone technology. I don’t think soldiers are going to be talking to their missiles any time soon, as there is no evidence for this in the improvement in voice technology.
Comments
Definitely, it knows where you are, it knows what a street name is and it knows your native language. It would be a simple addition. It makes a massive screw up on any foreign name that's more than a few letters. We already get that, just it's once a year, is 3 new commands and is called WWDC.
Apple bleats on about adding AI to Siri and it improving the accuracy, but it's definitely got worse recently. It usually hears correctly but rarely understands.
This could simply be done as a preference like Temperature scale in the Language and region settings. That way those folks who wish only to speak " 'murican-english" (this is more a mindset than has anything to do with language ability because plenty of Americans can and do correctly pronounce "jalapeño" even if they don't speak any foreign languages) can continue to hear silly pronunciations if they wish.