Apple talked up Siri's compact UI in iOS 14 quite a bit. However, after using it with the beta (and yes, I know things can change during the beta process), I am failing to see how this is an improvement. Having the Siri interface and answer cards pop in over whatever you are doing is supposed to give you a sense of your context (an Apple marketing term that annoys me to no end). But, you can't actually do anything with whatever you have open behind Siri without first dismissing the Siri interface. This makes the whole Siri interface unnecessarily busy to my eyes since there is now a bunch of additional information on the screen that is unrelated to what you are asking Siri about. It becomes very difficult to visually separate Siri from the rest of the screen. And, just as before, you still have to dismiss Siri before you can get back to whatever you were doing.
This new interface comes with a couple of steps backward in usability too. In iOS 13, Siri would always transcribe whatever it heard you ask into written text before giving you an answer. This allowed you to easily see if Siri had misheard you (and I believe it was also possible to manually edit your question using the keyboard).That all appears to be gone in iOS 14. Edit: The option to have your question displayed as text is still there in the Siri settings, but turned off by default. Also, your question now appears at the bottom of the screen by the Siri orb, with the answer displayed at the top. This creates a somewhat weird visual separation between question and answer in iOS 14. Also, in iOS 13 and before, if you asked Siri multiple questions, you could scroll up to see a transcript of your entire session. Now, it seems only the current answer is visible and is gone once you ask a new question. These changes all make Siri less useful.
I actually think the new Siri UI represents a missed opportunity. Having Siri be more contextual is a great idea. But, this is nothing more than a UI change at the moment. What would have been much more useful is if Siri's answer cards could be saved for later use. This could be done by allowing the user to pin a useful card until manually dismissed later. The user could then move the card to the edge of the screen to hide most of it (like a PiP window) until needed. This could be useful for things like measurement conversions where you are asking Siri for information you are going to need in a few moments rather than right away. If the user does not choose to pin the card, it disappears when you dismiss Siri, same as now.
Those are just my 2 cents. I'm curious what others think. This seems like an unnecessary redesign to me but maybe I am missing something?
This new interface comes with a couple of steps backward in usability too. In iOS 13, Siri would always transcribe whatever it heard you ask into written text before giving you an answer. This allowed you to easily see if Siri had misheard you (and I believe it was also possible to manually edit your question using the keyboard).
I actually think the new Siri UI represents a missed opportunity. Having Siri be more contextual is a great idea. But, this is nothing more than a UI change at the moment. What would have been much more useful is if Siri's answer cards could be saved for later use. This could be done by allowing the user to pin a useful card until manually dismissed later. The user could then move the card to the edge of the screen to hide most of it (like a PiP window) until needed. This could be useful for things like measurement conversions where you are asking Siri for information you are going to need in a few moments rather than right away. If the user does not choose to pin the card, it disappears when you dismiss Siri, same as now.
Those are just my 2 cents. I'm curious what others think. This seems like an unnecessary redesign to me but maybe I am missing something?
Last edited:
