Is Siri Utterly Stupid, or Am I Missing Something?

[Vlad Soare]

There are very few situations in which I actually use Siri. One of them is making handsfree phone calls when I'm in the car. And in order to make this easier I've added a relationship tag to the contacts I talk to frequently. For instance, one of the contacts is designated as my wife, and instead of telling Siri: "call Andreea", which would require me to be more specific because there are several Andreeas in my phonebook, I just tell her: "call my wife". And it works.
There's a contact called Ioana (just that, without a surname), which is tagged as my sister. And there are two or three other Ioanas in my phonebook, each with her own surname. Today I pressed the voice command button on the steering wheel to trigger Siri and said: "call my sister". And Siri replied: "which sister? Ioana XXXX or Ioana YYYY?" (none of which was the correct contact).

Is it me, or has Siri got really dumb?

 

[StumpyBloke]

I’ve had similar situations with Siri as well.

I am convinced Siri gets worse and certainly in the latest version of iOS 15 it is substantially worse with HomeKit.

I don’t know what Apple are playing at with regard to stability, efficacy and responsiveness with Siri but it is absolute garbage and an embarrassment.

I don’t know how Amazon get it absolutely spot-on with Alexa, and it’s certainly nothing to do with privacy but that really does just work.

And as I say, Siri is an embarrassment but then I would also say much of Apple software these days is following the same trend.

 

[adrianlondon]

I also think Siri plays around with my auto-correct. While I'm not looking, it takes words I've typed correctly and, after I've typed the following word, sneakily goes back and changes it to something stupid.

 

[StumpyBloke]

I also think Siri plays around with my auto-correct. While I'm not looking, it takes words I've typed correctly and, after I've typed the following word, sneakily goes back and changes it to something stupid.

Is that when using dictation? Mine does that too!

 

[adrianlondon]

Is that when using dictation? Mine does that too!

I don't use dictation; I use the (swipe) keyboard.

 

[StumpyBloke]

That’s interesting, I assumed that it only did this ridiculous retrospective correction using dictation, so it also does it using the swipe keyboard? How can Apple with their unlimited resources get the most basic functions so fundamentally screwed up??? Absolutely no doubt in my mind that their software is regressing year by year.

 

[w5jck]

Personally I think Siri and Alexa are both Artificial Ignorance...not much intelligence in them. (Probably the same for other systems too, but those are the only two I’ve tried using.) Dictation is appalling. Commands are muddled up. With Alexa I usually wind up yelling at her because she is so incredibly useless. I rarely used Siri. I have tried using Alexa for many years now, but she doesn't seem to get any less ignorant. For both, there are a handful of popular commands they seem to get correct, but most commands seem to be muddled up in some way. Alexa is the worst though. Occasionally she just starts jabbering on and on about something when no one even asked her a question or issued a command. When she does that, she tells me she can't find whatever she thought I asked for, then proceeds to offer a gillion unrelated things instead. Problem is, no one asked her anything. Worst of all, it is sometimes difficult to get Alexas to shut up. I wind up yelling "STOP" a lot. At least Siri doesn't try to sell me stuff all the time like Alexa does.

 

[adrianlondon]

After Siri spectacularly failed to understand what was (to me) a simple command, I let forth a good string of British swear words and insults. Siri transcribed each one absolutely perfectly and then said "I don't think I will comment on that". At least it knows what I think of it.

 

[antiprotest]

It's not just you. SIRI is utterly stupid. And sometimes it's like its speech recognition is worse than Nuance's was 20+ years ago.

 

[NARadyk]

Siri is a pain in the backside to use. If it wasn’t for the sound quality of the HomePods, Siri would be long gone as my smart home assistant.

 

[StumpyBloke]

What makes Siri on the HomePods even worse for me at the moment, but hopefully due to me running the latest beta software (15) on every device is the delay in controlling any HomeKit device, be it lights or curtains et cetera.

Constantly met with On it, or just a sec. Absolutely sick to death of that and don’t understand why we can’t turn that garbage off. Oh and another one it does is will still complain it can’t do it even though it’s actually performed the function I’ve asked, this is specific to the Philips hue lights.

Apple should be thoroughly ashamed at how crap Siri is.

 

[adrianlondon]

The Home app (via Siri or directly) often refuses to see the Hue hub and hence any devices on it, despite the Philips Hue app itself having no issue. Toggling WiFi off and on again fixes it for a while.

This is basic Apple homekit functionality that doesn't work properly.

As for the "On it" crap ... I have a shortcut that turns one of my lights on for 30 seconds. Siri moans the entire time that it's not working, even when it is, and then apologises for failing at the task, even when it works fine. Basically, Siri is irritatingly waiting for the END of the shortcut and gives up after about 10 seconds.

 

[Scott Robinson]

I use Siri as an egg timer. And, occasionally to turn HomeKit lights on and off. It works has long as Siri from my Apple Watch doesn't try to complete the request... it rarely understands anything.

 

[McScooby]

My current pet hate is saying "Hey Siri" & multiple devices firing off, as in not the one I'd want aka HomePod, or setting a timer after siri command & the timer only goes off on the device that picked up the request (altho last night also had a new one - "Hey Siri turn off all lights", which was met with ok, what light would you like turned off - living room, bedroom kitchen etc so replied everywhere & again met with options, grrrr! 🤣

 

[adrianlondon]

To solve that particular issue, I created a shortcut called "Lights Off" that turns the lights off in every room. Then I just say that, and Siri doesn't interrogate me any more.

 

[McScooby]

To solve that particular issue, I created a shortcut called "Lights Off" that turns the lights off in every room. Then I just say that, and Siri doesn't interrogate me any more.

Yeah, could do that but should I have to???

 

[Realityck]

Siri sometimes reminds me of this ST instance

Hello computer (no response)
Just use the keyboard (another suggests)
The keyboard how quaint.

 

[adrianlondon]

Yeah, could do that but should I have to???

No, but when dealing with the "differently-abled" Siri, one has to make accommodations.

 

[BlakeSchneider]

I don’t know how Amazon get it absolutely spot-on with Alexa, and it’s certainly nothing to do with privacy but that really does just work.

It’s user data. If Apple wants to improve Siri, they really need a happy medium. Perhaps they could introduce a prompt that allows users to share usage data to improve Siri, similar to how they’re already handling the Health and Research apps.

 

[StumpyBloke]

It’s user data. If Apple wants to improve Siri, they really need a happy medium. Perhaps they could introduce a prompt that allows users to share usage data to improve Siri, similar to how they’re already handling the Health and Research apps.

Nope it isn’t, not in this instance anyway. Siri’s inherent reliability, or rather lack of it, is nothing to do with user data. We aren’t referring to what Siri can do, we’re referring to how completely unreliable it is with what it can do.

 

[minimo3]

I only use Siri on my AW5 to set a timer while cooking or to send off a quick message while driving. Recently I get the “sorry I’m unable to respond” about 75% of the time. And the remaining 25% of the time it gets it hilariously wrong. Just today I said “Hey Siri, send a message to <name of person>”. I didn’t hear a response so I glanced at my watch at the stop light and it had already sent off a message with the contents “Hey Siri, send a message to (name)” ?. It’s a joke. Sad that it used to work just fine in iOS 6

 

[Jack Neill]

Siri is dumb af.

 

[StumpyBloke]

There is no question or doubt in my experience, that Siri becomes more unreliable every year. She might know the answer to more questions but when it comes to actual reliability with anything like controlling HomeKit, reminders et cetera year after year it becomes more difficult to get her to do anything correctly.

 

[Dave 123]

As for the "On it" crap ... I have a shortcut that turns one of my lights on for 30 seconds. Siri moans the entire time that it's not working, even when it is, and then apologises for failing at the task, even when it works fine. Basically, Siri is irritatingly waiting for the END of the shortcut and gives up after about 10 seconds.

A fix for that would be to get HomeKit to turn the light off itself after the delay. #shouldn'thaveto.

But my recent example of self-inconsistent Stupid Siri transcript is:
Me: Open the door.
Siri: Did you mean door?
Me: Yes.
Siri: Opening door.

 

[adrianlondon]

A fix for that would be to get HomeKit to turn the light off itself after the delay. #shouldn'thaveto.

That was my post from two years ago. I don't have a hub (HomePod, Apple TV) so I "fixed" it by getting the shortcut to announce every 10 seconds how long was left. That stopped the shortcut timing out. I also made the "30 seconds" delay a parameter and it seems to work up to about 2 minutes.