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Siri fail.
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Atheist
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Nov 3, 2014, 04:50 PM
 
Really?

     
cgc
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Nov 4, 2014, 12:37 PM
 
Great story /s. Maybe there was a sound int he background, you have an accent (your location is Punta Cana, República Dominicana) or speech impediment Siri doesn't understand, etc. There will always be quirky things that happen with voice recognition (and text prediction) services...

In other words, "nothing to see here, please disperse."
"Like a midget at a urinal, I was going to have to stay on my toes." Frank Drebin, Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult
     
andi*pandi
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Nov 4, 2014, 12:40 PM
 
your heart light? the radio? the noize?

sometimes she is very picky about sentence construction.
     
Atheist  (op)
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Nov 4, 2014, 01:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by cgc View Post
Great story /s. Maybe there was a sound int he background, you have an accent (your location is Punta Cana, República Dominicana) or speech impediment Siri doesn't understand, etc. There will always be quirky things that happen with voice recognition (and text prediction) services...

In other words, "nothing to see here, please disperse."
I spoke the words "Turn on my 5 AM alarm". Siri displayed those exact words on the screen so it obviously recognized what I said. I'm from the Midwest and speak with a General American accent so I don't think that's an issue.

In general I haven't been that impressed with Siri. Maybe I need to work at it a little harder. To me Siri seems like the "Apple TV" of the iPhone....just a hobby.
     
andi*pandi
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Nov 4, 2014, 03:41 PM
 
I find she is very handy for some things, but maybe you need to review her common sayings.

For instance, she is very good at "Play <band name>" and finding that band in my itunes, or <playlist> or even <genre>.
Also, "set timer for 15 minutes" "set alarm for 10am" work fine for me.
     
ghporter
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Nov 5, 2014, 07:59 AM
 
"DING!!!" (message tone that says I got a text from my wife)
(Me) "Siri, read last message."
(Siri) "There are no messages."
(Me) "Read last text."
(Siri) "There are no messages."
I take out the phone, look, and YES there ARE messages - from my wife. WTF, Siri?

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
andi*pandi
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Nov 5, 2014, 11:29 AM
 
Well, there was the time that she couldn't find my husband in my contact list.

"Call D----"
"you have no contact named D----. Did you mean J----?
No.
     
Amber Neely
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Nov 16, 2014, 03:03 AM
 
You used to be able to say "Turn on flashlight" which was actually pretty beneficial if your hands were full in the dark (as mine often are at 5:00am), but now she just snaps back "I can't do that!" Truthfully, I miss it. Also, she occasionally will tell me what planes are above my head, bur other times acts as though she's got no idea what I'm talking about.

That being said, I wouldn't replace her. She's a pretty important fixture in my life, especially for the ability to simply ask her to set timers/alarms while I'm in the middle of things.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Nov 16, 2014, 10:57 AM
 
I don't understand why she's so bloody useless in German.

In English, I can ask her, "How many years is 340 million seconds?" and she'll get back with a Wolfram Alpha answer that explains exactly what I wanted to know.

In German, she'll respond with a ****ing web search. Why????

Just one of countless examples.
     
badidea
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Nov 17, 2014, 06:30 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Why????
Because Germans don't ask useless questions!
***
     
Spheric Harlot
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Nov 17, 2014, 08:07 AM
 
You don't have kids.
     
juliavasa5
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Nov 21, 2014, 02:44 AM
 
The dark as mine often are at 5:00am but now she just snaps back "I can't do that!" Truthfully, I miss it. Also, she occasionally will tell me what planes are above my head, bur other times acts



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turtle777
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Nov 21, 2014, 07:48 AM
 
Siri is a f$&@ing idiot.

She understands "Set alarm for 6am", but not "Turn alarm on for 6am".

To me, this is just a display of the fundamental lack of flexibility that Siri was supposed to overdone.

If I have to remember EXACT code words, rather than Siri understanding plain English, it is useless.

-t
     
SierraDragon
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Nov 21, 2014, 05:05 PM
 
Folks who treat Siri as worthless should expect no more than that. Intelligently try treating it like it is an AI system rather than like it is a simple voice recorder. For instance: speak in clear single words using simple correct grammar. And when Siri fails to "get it," try asking the same question or task a different way.

E.g. asking "What is the altitude of Flagstaff AZ" produces all kinds of cutesy answers like: Keep your tray table up; I am not sure, but whatever you do don't look down; etc. However asking "What is the _elevation_ of Flagstaff AZ" gives a prompt appropriate answer.

I have been using Siri since it was first released, and today it generally does pretty well on the latest hardware when a good signal is present. At least twice as good on the 5s as on the 4s, and a decent boom mic helps in the car. 

I do not know how much of the improvement over time has been hardware, or software, or channel competence, or Siri learning me or me learning Siri. But I do know that each of those parameters is significant in improving accuracy and utility.

Note that I am not suggesting that Siri be anthropomorphized. I am saying that AI involves learning by the user as well as by the AI system. Some time in the distant future maybe AI will be able to fully cope with stupid and/or non-participating users, but that will be a very long time coming I think.
( Last edited by SierraDragon; Nov 21, 2014 at 05:17 PM. Reason: Siri is _not_ a fail.)
     
ghporter
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Nov 21, 2014, 06:24 PM
 
I agree that you must give Siri plenty to work with, but the actually incorrect responses are what bug me, like "there are no messages" when the phone just chimed to indicate a message from a specific person had come in. That's not a case of Siri not being able to understand me.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
turtle777
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Nov 21, 2014, 06:28 PM
 
I don't (completely) disagree, but see my example above.

This is NOT a sign of AI. Apple should be able to do better than that.

ALL of the following should set the alarm correctly:

Set alarm for 6am
Set the alarm for 6am
Set my alarm to 6am
Turn alarm on for 6am
Turn on alarm for 6am
Wake me up at 6am
Wake me at 6am
Alarm on for 6 am

If I have to learn ONE exact command / syntax to do it, then Siri has NOTHING in common with AI.

-t
     
ghporter
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Nov 22, 2014, 10:13 AM
 
I can see "set alarm" meaning something different from "turn on alarm," but otherwise I concur. And the results of those two meanings should be identical to the user.

In building a compiler, you parse an input for specific "tokens" that have meaning in the language you're compiling. The difference with Siri is really only in recognizing those tokens and handling variable syntax. (Not trivial, but not really that hard.). To me, the voice recognition part is far more complex than the syntax part.

Siri did fine for me before, so why has she suddenly gotten cranky and stupid with iOS 8?

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
SunSeeker
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Nov 24, 2014, 01:43 AM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
ALL of the following should set the alarm correctly:

Set alarm for 6am
Set the alarm for 6am
Set my alarm to 6am
Turn alarm on for 6am
Turn on alarm for 6am
Wake me up at 6am
Wake me at 6am
Alarm on for 6 am

If I have to learn ONE exact command / syntax to do it, then Siri has NOTHING in common with AI.

-t
All of those are recognised as Alarm Related by Siri with only the 4th and 8th NOT turning on the alarm

The 4th one showed me a bunch of alarms and said 'you have 25 alarms for 6. Tap the one you'd like to set', hmm OK
The 8th one said 'Here's the "onto" alarm it's turned off right now' and presented me with a 6am alarm and switch in the off position

The rest all enabled my 6am alarm

I use Siri every day and rarely find something she doesn't recognise (I've certainly had problems in the past and still have occasional weirdness when things Siri would normally manage with ease are unsuccessful for a period of time)
The secret to using Siri is to try any task 2 to 3 times (with a slight variation when your first try is not successful), then do it the old fashioned way - after time you will find that Siri can recognise and help with many many tasks
Also, I think it's important to appreciate that poor enunciation (mumbling), microphone position, microphone quality (eg. ceiling mic in car generally superior to dash mic) and interference from fans, wind, running water and so on can cause issues
     
TerBear
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Nov 25, 2014, 01:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
"DING!!!" (message tone that says I got a text from my wife)
(Me) "Siri, read last message."
(Siri) "There are no messages."
(Me) "Read last text."
(Siri) "There are no messages."
I take out the phone, look, and YES there ARE messages - from my wife. WTF, Siri?

I had exactly the same problem, which started about 2 months ago.
I finally found the solution!
(Me) "Read last text."
(Siri) "There are no messages."
(Me) "It is not true that there are no messages"
Siri then reads the message.

Strange, but true!
     
Spheric Harlot
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Nov 25, 2014, 04:26 PM
 
Now that is what machine overlord paranoia is all about. It's starting.
     
turtle777
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Nov 25, 2014, 07:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by TerBear View Post
I had exactly the same problem, which started about 2 months ago.
I finally found the solution!
(Me) "Read last text."
(Siri) "There are no messages."
(Me) "It is not true that there are no messages"
Siri then reads the message.

Strange, but true!
I'll throw the bullshit flag on this.

I tried this, verbatim. Siri insists that there are no texts.

-t
     
ghporter
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Nov 26, 2014, 08:29 AM
 
On a whim, I changed from an alternate voice (British male) back to the default American female voice, and she read messages without a hitch... I also noticed that I no longer get "I'm sorry, but I can't do that right now, please try later" replies from Siri with the default voice. I'm slightly confused, but at least I'm getting the performance I expected instead of nothing.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
TerBear
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Nov 27, 2014, 09:28 AM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
I'll throw the bullshit flag on this.

I tried this, verbatim. Siri insists that there are no texts.

-t
It is absolutely true.
I am using an iPhone 5 with iOS6. Maybe it is different with iOS7 or 8, I don't know.
The language is set to English (Canada)
I am using my Motorola Bluetooth earpiece in my car, and Siri used to read all incoming messages perfectly until about 2 months ago.
I have no idea why Siri now says that there are no messages until told that it is not true.
It is truly bizzare that she refuses, and the fix is equally bizarre.
     
TerBear
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Nov 27, 2014, 09:32 AM
 
Actually my exact words are:

(Me) "Read last incoming text message." (I speak it slowly and clearly)
(Siri) "There are no messages."
(Me) "It is not true that there are no messages"
Siri then reads the message.
     
TerBear
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Nov 27, 2014, 09:50 AM
 
Now this is interesting.
Back in the house a new message arrived, and I pressed the Home button to activate Siri, and it does not work this way.
Transcript just now at home:
(Me) "Read last incoming text message." (I speak it slowly and clearly)
(Siri) "There aren't any messages."
(Me) "It is not true that there are no messages"
(Siri) "There aren't any messages."

I am going driving now and will get someone to send me a text message, then I will try again with my Bluetooth earpiece.
     
TerBear
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Nov 27, 2014, 11:54 AM
 
Now this is interesting.
Back in the house a new message arrived, and I pressed the Home button to activate Siri, and it does not work this way.
Transcript just now at home:
(Me) "Read last incoming text message." (I speak it slowly and clearly)
(Siri) "There aren't any messages."
(Me) "It is not true that there are no messages"
(Siri) "There aren't any messages."

OK I am just back from driving and it works 100% of the time with the Bluetooth earpiece, but does not work at all if you are using Siri with the phone in your hand and just pressed the Home button to activate Siri.
Very strange indeed...
     
turtle777
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Nov 27, 2014, 02:47 PM
 
iPhone 6, iOS 8, not working.

What good is Siri if it only works with a BT headset. Stupid shit.

-t
     
ghporter
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Nov 27, 2014, 06:48 PM
 
I had Siri tell me (again) there were no messages. Then I said "recheck messages," and lo and behold there WERE messages. I have to think it's something about how quickly Siri can do some things, or how much access Siri has to the various apps, but seriously, it ran fine before!

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
turtle777
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Nov 27, 2014, 08:55 PM
 
No, it's something about Apple just being lazy and not giving a rat's ass.

They got $100B in cash and can't hire to fix this shit ? Bullshit.

-t
     
Spheric Harlot
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Nov 28, 2014, 07:34 AM
 
Throwing more money and more personnel at a problem is not more likely to fix it. But you probably knew that.

What's interesting is that Siri is so variable.

It was tremendously annoying for a while that it absolutely refused to recognize the name of a contact of mine, despite me pronouncing it exactly as Siri did. Then, it started working (though it asks to confirm that I mean him).

When I tell it to call my girlfriend (by name), it will suggest similar-sounding contact names. This used to happen until a few weeks ago, then it started working fine, and now it's back to previous behavior.
     
SunSeeker
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Nov 28, 2014, 12:03 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Throwing more money and more personnel at a problem is not more likely to fix it. But you probably knew that.

What's interesting is that Siri is so variable.

It was tremendously annoying for a while that it absolutely refused to recognize the name of a contact of mine, despite me pronouncing it exactly as Siri did. Then, it started working (though it asks to confirm that I mean him).

When I tell it to call my girlfriend (by name), it will suggest similar-sounding contact names. This used to happen until a few weeks ago, then it started working fine, and now it's back to previous behavior.
There are a couple of things you can do to improve your chances here
First - check that you have entered your girlfriends first and last names in the proper fields
Second - add her middle name in the middle name field
Third - add a nickname
Fourth - tell Siri "'Girlfriends name' is my girlfriend"

Now when siri fails you can fall back to one of the other options

Regarding your first point
There are some things where I hold out no hope of siri ever getting them right

I send multiple text messages every day while driving and have given up trying to add my name at the end. Siri knows my name is doug and yet my pronunciation of my own name leads her to insert dog or dark almost 100% of the time
     
turtle777
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Nov 28, 2014, 12:20 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Throwing more money and more personnel at a problem is not more likely to fix it. But you probably knew that.
I disagree. More resources could (should) certainly make Siri better (I.e. more consistent). Do you believe the issues are unfixable ? Do you think Siri is as good as it could be ?

I'm not using Siri anymore. It's just too frustrating.
If Apple were serious about it, they'd fix it. Otherwise, it will just linger as a "we can do that too" feature.

-t
     
TerBear
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Nov 28, 2014, 07:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
I had Siri tell me (again) there were no messages. Then I said "recheck messages," and lo and behold there WERE messages. I have to think it's something about how quickly Siri can do some things, or how much access Siri has to the various apps, but seriously, it ran fine before!
Same here – it ran fine until a few months ago.
BTW today I have updated my iPhone 5 to iOS 8 and have the same issue and the same fix.
Siri will tell me there are no messages and when I say "It is not true that there are no messages" it then works with the Bluetooth headset, but never with the button on the phone itself.

Tomorrow I will go for a drive again and try the "recheck messages" idea.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Nov 29, 2014, 05:15 AM
 
Originally Posted by SunSeeker View Post
There are a couple of things you can do to improve your chances here
First - check that you have entered your girlfriends first and last names in the proper fields
Second - add her middle name in the middle name field
Third - add a nickname
Fourth - tell Siri "'Girlfriends name' is my girlfriend"

Now when siri fails you can fall back to one of the other options
Just calling her by first AND last name works, too.

With the other guy, Siri suggested three people with the same first name and completely different surnames, read them to me, and absolutely refused to let me choose the first one despite pronouncing him the exact same way I did.
That works now, for the time being, but it's just weird that it should work sometimes, and sometimes spectacularly not.

At least Maps really does appear to have got a lot better over the past few months. I never really had issues with it, but I do notice improvements.
     
Chito
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Nov 30, 2014, 09:10 PM
 
Siri used to work ok for me. Since iOS 8 she's a total cluster f#%k. I was able to say "text my wife" and she would ask what do you want to say to Angela Smith? Now when I say text my wife Siri replies I don't have any contact information for Angela Smith. Ok.....I ask who is my wife and Siri replies Angela Smith.....fair enough show me contact information for Angela Smith.....Siri does. Well alrighty then show me contact information for my wife, again Siri does.....ok then text Angela Smith and she say ok what do you want to say to Angela Smith? Huh? I'll play...."text my wife" Siri replies I don't have any contact information for Angela Smith! Awesome.
When I recieved a text I used to be able to say "read my message" and Siri would read the incoming message. Now she will read the first incoming message only, after that she will only read my replies instead of the incoming messages.
It's gotten to the point that if I can't just read the message myself I just don't answer till I can....pisses the old ball and chain off.
Never argue with an idiot. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
     
ghporter
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Dec 1, 2014, 09:45 AM
 
I've added "nicknames" to many of my contact entries so that Siri could find them - before iOS 8. I think there's a difference between being able to read the "relationship" entries in contacts and identifying a specific contact by that relationship. So my wife's entry has her full name, and the nickname "Wife" and Siri could find that entry every time, and still can. I've used this for friends whose first name is confusing (or an initial), and it works great.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
Atheist  (op)
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Dec 1, 2014, 01:28 PM
 
Aside from not understanding things, my other main issue with Siri is a timing thing. Frequently, no matter what I do, Siri cuts off the first word or two of what I'm saying. And it's not that I'm speaking too quickly. I can wait several seconds after the beep before I start speaking but still no luck. It's as though something kicks Siri into gear once I start talking but by then it's too late, it misses the first word.
     
andi*pandi
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Dec 2, 2014, 06:30 PM
 
I'm glad I'm not the only one who Siri doesn't want talking to their spouse.

Jealous *****.
     
techgirlable
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Dec 2, 2014, 07:26 PM
 
Originally Posted by TerBear View Post
I had exactly the same problem, which started about 2 months ago.
I finally found the solution!
(Me) "Read last text."
(Siri) "There are no messages."
(Me) "It is not true that there are no messages"
Siri then reads the message.

Strange, but true!
Haha, that is very weird
     
donaldkepler
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Dec 8, 2014, 05:29 AM
 
Well, I feel that Siri is a good feature; what a long conversation on this beautiful app over here. Till now, I have used Siri for few activities like making a call with Face Time, asking about restaurant in nearby area, making an early morning alarm and few general ones. I felt success in all these ones.
     
TerBear
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Dec 11, 2014, 10:09 AM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
I had Siri tell me (again) there were no messages. Then I said "recheck messages," and lo and behold there WERE messages. I have to think it's something about how quickly Siri can do some things, or how much access Siri has to the various apps, but seriously, it ran fine before!
Thanks for that, it works perfectly.
Now I only have to say "Recheck Messages" and Siri will read out the messages, even if I have not previously asked.
Thanks again!
     
   
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