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Siri's faults, what no one is talking about

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CaptSaltyJack

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 28, 2007
351
1
I'd like to bring these up since everyone is too busy raving how awesome Siri is. There are a few fairly big problems:

- after using Siri, the ringer volume is set to MAX, even though if you adjust the ringer volume, you may only be at level 3 or 4. It takes a few screen locks and adjustments before it kicks in properly at the right level.

- if you repeatedly interact with the same person (e.g. "tell Steve I'm running late") and you have multiple Steves with different last names, it keeps asking you which Steve. It should be smart enough to eventually just assume which Steve you mean based on frequency of interaction.

- you ask it to look for restaurants near you, but you can't then say "call The Tiki Hut."

Anyone else having these probs? Especially the first one which is quite annoying.
 
KentuckyHouse

KentuckyHouse

macrumors 68030
Jan 29, 2010
2,723
998
Lexington, KY.
I've definitely got the first one. I noticed this through the day today on my 4S and had no idea what was going on. It took a reboot to correct it.

It is a beta, though, so I'm sure it's something they'll get ironed out.
 
C

CaptSaltyJack

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 28, 2007
351
1
Ah that's right, I forget it's beta. Weird that they'd release it then. Beta is fine for smaller groups, but not the entire public!

And if you meant a different Steve, you would specify the last name, I'd imagine.
 
D

Don Kosak

macrumors 6502a
Mar 12, 2010
860
4
United States
Try using pronouns on your second and third interaction.

Example:

"Tell Steve I'm running late"

"Tell Him I'll meet him at the restaurant in 30 minutes."

I'm not sure if that will work or not, but give it a shot. My phone's still like, in China or something, so I can't test it myself. The ringer volume thing might be a "beta" glitch that gets fixed in the next update.

So far most of the glitches I've read about are pretty small. Not like the proximity sensor glitch last year.
 
bruleke

bruleke

macrumors 6502
Jun 26, 2009
444
6
127.0.0.1
I expected that from Siri.

Voice recognition is something that work with some people and with other just won't.

Seems like some people don't have the 'right' pinch/voice for the recognition.

Since IBM via voice (90's) I've been trying to use softwares like Siri is nowadays.

These softwares always recognize 50-60% of what you say.

Write this: you WILL leave Siri after some frustrations and you WILL get frustraded. Someday you will just say: "oh ******** this! I will type down"
 
acfusion29

acfusion29

macrumors 68040
Nov 8, 2007
3,128
1
Toronto
CaptSaltyJack said:
l.

- if you repeatedly interact with the same person (e.g. "tell Steve I'm running late") and you have multiple Steves with different last names, it keeps asking you which Steve. It should be smart enough to eventually just assume which Steve you mean based on frequency of interaction.
Click to expand...

ya, and then that one time comes where you interact with a different steve and you get all pissed off and post on MR because Siri isn't smart enough to know that you only interact with Steve at this time, or on these days :rolleyes:

see where i'm going with this?
 
S

salesguy

macrumors regular
Jun 20, 2009
129
0
CaptSaltyJack said:
I'd like to bring these up since everyone is too busy raving how awesome Siri is. There are a few fairly big problems:

- after using Siri, the ringer volume is set to MAX, even though if you adjust the ringer volume, you may only be at level 3 or 4. It takes a few screen locks and adjustments before it kicks in properly at the right level.
Click to expand...

I'm glad I am not the only one this is happening to, I'm sure it will be fixed in next update but it is very annoying. Is it the result of talking so loud into the microphone?
 
kas23

kas23

macrumors 603
Oct 28, 2007
5,629
288
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Siri is certainly not a game changer. I feel slightly embarrassed I bought into the hype. It's really no different than past voice recognition apps. To begin, I'm only speaking at the *right* time about 70% of the time, then when I'm speaking at the correct moment, it says the network is unavailable.

When I do everything right, it only works about 40% of the time. For example, it couldn't handle "direct me to home", "give me directions to the Olive Garden", or "who is Umberto Eco".

I expected more from Apple. I feel slightly deceived.
 
Tuckrat

Tuckrat

macrumors member
Dec 14, 2008
82
40
New Hampshire, USA
Yeah, the issues with Siri not being able to connect to a network to do a simple task like 'Call Susan', let alone anything, is total BS. The older Voice Command didn't have to connect to a network to do a simple call. I can understand connecting to the network to get answers to other questions, like 'Where do babies come from?' (Since that seems to be the favorite on this thread, LOL).

Anyway, what this tells me that needing a dual core A5 processor is probably not really required for Siri to work, but Apple is limiting it to A5's to force people to buy the 4s to get the feature. But uhoh, the servers are getting hammered, and now the most touted feature of the phone doesn't work. How are you liking your $200-400 DEAF assistant now? :(

Yeah, yeah, I know it's beta and the novelty will wear off and the server load will drop. It's just BS that Apple limits us to an A5 for the feature to work where the phone's processing power apparently has nothing to do with it.

Aside from this, the phone is awesome. :eek:
 
P

PhoneI

macrumors 68000
Mar 7, 2008
1,629
619
I am extremely impressed with Siri so far. Best voice recognition I ever used.
 
A

admanimal

macrumors 68040
Apr 22, 2005
3,531
2
Tuckrat said:
Yeah, the issues with Siri not being able to connect to a network to do a simple task like 'Call Susan', let alone anything, is total BS. The older Voice Command didn't have to connect to a network to do a simple call. I can understand connecting to the network to get answers to other questions, like 'Where do babies come from?' (Since that seems to be the favorite on this thread, LOL).
Click to expand...

It's not just connecting to the network to get information, some of the actual AI processing is going on in the cloud. So basically Siri doesn't really know what you're asking unless there is a network connection.
 
firestarter

firestarter

macrumors 603
Dec 31, 2002
5,506
227
Green and pleasant land
A big backwards step seems to be that it always relies on there being a data connection.

I use voice recognition all the time on my 3gs when I'm on the subway to change music tracks (it works OK if I hold the mic close to my mouth, and the train noise is too loud to disturb anyone else).

I'd be really annoyed to loose that feature. Apple should regress to the previous technology if there's no data connection, rather than just giving up.

admanimal said:
It's not just connecting to the network to get information, some of the actual AI processing is going on in the cloud. So basically Siri doesn't really know what you're asking unless there is a network connection.
Click to expand...

Bad excuse. Simple commands like this were parsed fine in the last two models without relying on a server farm in the cloud.
 
Tuckrat

Tuckrat

macrumors member
Dec 14, 2008
82
40
New Hampshire, USA
admanimal said:
It's not just connecting to the network to get information, some of the actual AI processing is going on in the cloud. So basically Siri doesn't really know what you're asking unless there is a network connection.
Click to expand...

Right. That's what I'm saying. The processing is offloaded, so the processor in the phone probably does not matter much. So why can't us iPhone 4 users have the feature? Because then Apple wouldn't make money...
 
Tuckrat

Tuckrat

macrumors member
Dec 14, 2008
82
40
New Hampshire, USA
firestarter said:
I use voice recognition all the time on my 3gs when I'm on the subway to change music tracks (it works OK if I hold the mic close to my mouth, and the train noise is too loud to disturb anyone else).
Click to expand...

I forgot about voice commands for music control. My thinking was that if you didn't have a cell signal to process the command, then you most likely wouldn't be able to place a call anyway. I didn't even think of commands to control music, which don't require cellular access. Wow that is going to suck if you're on a plane with Airplane mode turned on...
 
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