Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Siri and a Simple Maths Question

StumpyBloke

StumpyBloke

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 21, 2012
5,732
6,444
England
Just asked Siri to calculate my date rate for a job today and I asked “hey Siri what is 6.5 multiplied by 110 plus 143”

She always reads/calculates it as 6.5 multiplied by 110 plus 1143. IE adding an additional 1 to the last figure.

She does it with seemingly all number in the 100 to 199 range. Could anyone please try this for me? Thanks.
 
StumpyBloke said:
Just asked Siri to calculate my date rate for a job today and I asked “hey Siri what is 6.5 multiplied by 110 plus 143”

She always reads/calculates it as 6.5 multiplied by 110 plus 1143. IE adding an additional 1 to the last figure.

She does it with seemingly all number in the 100 to 199 range. Could anyone please try this for me? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Works for me, too. I’m trying to think of what possible pronunciations “one hundred” could have that might sound like “one one hundred”.
 
  • Like
Reactions: StumpyBloke
Thanks for checking. Even if i say it slowly she does the same and it’s only if the second figure is 101 or more.

It does the same on my HomePod, watch and iPad. I have no idea what to do. I despise Apple and Siri!!
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Project Alice
Are you saying “one four three” or “one hundred and forty three”? I’m saying the latter.

I’ve asked some friends to check and theirs are fine.
 
Thanks. It will always add the first 143 as 1143 and subsequent ones will either be 143 or 1143 but then changed if I add another 143. Makes no sense!
 
Just changed Siri & Search to English (Australia) from English (United Kingdom) and it works as expected!! (On my iPhone).

Edit: changed it back and still screwed and changed it to Ireland and still screwed
 
Unregistered 4U said:
That was my guess! :) Glad it’s working for you now!
Click to expand...

Well, except it isn’t really. I am in the UK and of course would have it set to UK. So it’s a kind of workaround which should not be necessary. I genuinely don’t understand how it’s affecting all of my devices. So I can’t even do a reset.

Thanks for your help anyway. And thanks for everyone else’s help.
 
StumpyBloke said:
Just changed Siri & Search to English (Australia) from English (United Kingdom) and it works as expected!! (On my iPhone).

Edit: changed it back and still screwed and changed it to Ireland and still screwed
Click to expand...
Now you can experiment with different accents, if you're good at doing impressions! Maybe you can try Glaswegian and North Yorkshire for starters...
:p

-------
ETA: this discussion just reminded me of something funny with Siri. I have Siri's output set for Indian (Voice 1) because I got tired of the default USA voice. So now when Siri reads any number involving 10 million or 100,000, it uses "crore" and "lakh" (for example, 30,200,000 would be said as "3 crore 2 lakh" by Siri). I'll have to try exploring Siri's various languages sometime to see if there are any other interesting localizations.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: StumpyBloke
To be honest, I’ve lost the will to live with Apple. I despise the company and Siri more than words can describe. Unfortunately I’m so far locked into the ecosystem it will be difficult to get out of it now.

As a workaround, I have set the Siri language to be English Australian and selected the British voice. So it seems to work fine and with the usual voice. Will check it again when they release a new update to screw something else up!

Anyway, really appreciate all your help. I’m calling it quits for now. I’ve had enough for one day
 
Last edited:
Unregistered 4U said:
I’m saying “one hundred forty three”. I had a math teacher that docked points for giving an oral answer that used “and” where “and” wasn’t where the decimal would be :D
Click to expand...

It may depend where in the world you are. Your pronunciation sounds very like US English? Here in the UK we always say "and". For us on this side of the pond it sounds very strange not to include "and" when saying a number like that.

Doesn't help the problem, just thought I'd throw that in for interests sake. OK. I'll get my coat...
 
  • Like
Reactions: StumpyBloke
Using UK Siri on the latest beta of iPadOS. I expected it to follow the order of operations, but I guess when spoken like this, it makes sense for it to do it this way.
7D4785E2-8BB9-469B-959C-F885D44A2D1E.jpeg
 
Slartibart said:
“hey Siri what is 6.5 multiplied by 110 plus hundredfourtythree” works correctly.
“plus onehundredfourtythree” gives 1143.

UK English set here.
Click to expand...

Interesting, thank you. Yes that’s absolutely right, just tried again on mine by resetting back to English United Kingdom and it behaves like you say.

I’ve asked a couple of friends to try this who are also in the UK and they are saying “one hundred and forty three“ and theirs are correct. But I guess you are saying yours is behaving exactly the same as mine?
 
StumpyBloke said:
Now you are getting too technical for me LOL. All I know is the correct answer for my sum is 858
Click to expand...

It put a parenthesis around the addition in my screenshot. Thus it dealt with the last sum before doing the multiplication. Just like it was spoken. But the order of operations dictates that if you write it out without the parentheses, multiplication occurs before addition. So Siri in my case added parentheses to follow the spoken order of operations rather than the mathematical order of operations. Which result is correct in that regard is sort of subjective
 
StumpyBloke said:
Interesting, thank you. Yes that’s absolutely right, just tried again on mine by resetting back to English United Kingdom and it behaves like you say.

I’ve asked a couple of friends to try this who are also in the UK and they are saying “one hundred and forty three“ and theirs are correct. But I guess you are saying yours is behaving exactly the same as mine?
Click to expand...
Yes. Whenever I say “plus onehundredwhatever” Siri understands onethousendonehundred-whatever

Funny enough I am currently outside the UK… but somehow I doubt that’s a geo-fenced thing 🤪
 
  • Like
Reactions: StumpyBloke
Slartibart said:
Yes. Whenever I say “plus onehundredwhatever” Siri understands onethousendonehundred-whatever

Funny enough I am currently outside the UK… but somehow I doubt that’s a geo-fenced thing
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for confirming. I’m glad it’s not just mine that’s doing this. It does it across all of my Apple devices, watch, iPad, iPhone and HomePods. Yet another idiosyncrasy in the depths of the sewers that is Siri. Thanks again, appreciate it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back