4 ms·

Siri Is Super Dumb and Getting Dumber

76 points by rgovostes 2y ago

amazingamazing 2y ago
I'm curious if anyone who's ex-Apple could briefly (without breaking any rules) describe why Siri is so bad compared to competitors.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  All of the intent based bots are bad. None of them use any form of “AI”. You give them all a list of phrases to match (utterances) with variable parts (slots) and map them to “intents”. You can build much better systems with LLMs now. I’ve built a few for call centers (Amazon Lex + Connect + Bedrock)
  - nytesky 2y ago
    I was going to say similarly, what competitors are better. Alexa or Cortana or Hey Google? Google is maybe a little better but none are ChatGPT which is a different thing I thought the whole point of Apple Intelligence was to have ChatGPT as backend for Siri, but this does not seem that?
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      Siri is suppose to be routing “world knowledge” to Siri. The LLM based Siri that can handle internal phone actions won’t be available until next year. This is an example I put together in response to annother submission on HN a few days ago. https://chatgpt.com/share/678bab08-f3a0-8010-82e0-32cff9c0b428 https://chatgpt.com/share/678bab08-f3a0-8010-82e0-32cff9c0b4... In the real world, you would give a prompt that could handle multiple intents and properties (slots) for the intent.
  - amazingamazing 2y ago
    Siri is uniquely bad. If you have an iPhone, try asking it to pause and resume repeatedly. Sometimes it will say that it cannot do that (pause), but then the sound pauses anyway. Ditto with resuming.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      I just did it while playing music on my phone and video playing in the background. I initiated with “Hey Siri”. I’m running the latest version of iOS. But honestly, most of the time I either take an Airpod out of my ear, click on the AirPod stem, use my watch if I’m running to control volume, playback, or use the steering wheel controls on my car.
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  Any tool that empowers the user can be misused. Apple is so terrified that you'll misuse their technology that they spend most of their engineering effort preventing you from getting things done with it. Hence, Siri. Of course this is sustainable only as long as they have no competition. But even the post-Jobs Apple has a limited glide ratio. They will eventually find that the walls they've built are better at confining the company itself than at corraling its customers.
- wetpaws 2y ago
  [dead]
netsharc 2y ago
It's not Siri, but I'm surprised they didn't immediately kill a feature which alerted people with misleading headlines like "Luigi Mangione shoots himself" or that Rafael Nadal has come out as gay. An using the BBC's icon next to them! Steve Jobs would've stormed into that team's office and dropped a grenade... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/07/apple-update-ai-inaccurate-news-alerts-bbc-apple-intelligence-iphone https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/07/apple-upd... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cge93de21n0o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cge93de21n0o > The BBC first complained to the tech giant about its journalism being misrepresented in December but Apple did not respond until Monday [January 6], when it said it was working to clarify that summaries were AI-generated.
- dialup_sounds 2y ago
  Not to defend the output--notification summaries clearly need work--but it used the BBC icon because it was summarizing the 20+ alerts sent to that user by the BBC app.
  - sieabahlpark 2y ago
    [dead]
- sgerenser 2y ago
  Apple recently announced they are disabling AI notification summaries for news apps in response to these high profile incidents. Seems like the entire feature should be rethought.
  - canucker2016 2y ago
    According to https://www.macrumors.com/2025/01/21/macos-sequoia-15-3-apple-intelligence-opt-out/ https://www.macrumors.com/2025/01/21/macos-sequoia-15-3-appl..., macOS 15.3 and iOS 18.3 enable Apple Intelligence automatically on install for supported devices. User must disable to opt-out. Flippant corporate Apple response to article, "You're asking it wrong."
denkmoon 2y ago
I’d settle for it not resuming my audiobook when I ask for music :’)
Havoc 2y ago
Really seems like apple missed this time with their usually "we're not first, but we're the best when we do show up strat" on AI.
- addicted 2y ago
  They aren’t even not the best. They’re well below par. For example, Gruber shows that Apple Intelligence which uses ChatGPT, will give the wrong answers for questions which ChatGPT itself is right 100% of the time. It requires effort to be that bad.
retskrad 2y ago
Why do we still hold Apple as a company in high regard when they remain incredibly inert, bowing to investor pressure to add generative AI features they are ill-equipped to handle as an institution, while prioritizing stock buybacks and dividends over innovating new products or developing a car or actually making a VR headset the market wants? Last year they released AirPods Max 2, a 4 year old headphone at the time, with the only change being new colors and USB-c and the same price tag. If that’s not the perfect picture of Apple under Tim Cook.
- noch 2y ago
  > Why do we still hold Apple as a company in high regard […] There is no "we". There's just a market (of products and of company shares) in which anyone can put their money where their preferences are and express their opinion.
- thejazzman 2y ago
  the new airpods max also lost support for wired audio
- nradov 2y ago
  It's so weird that some people see stock buybacks and dividends as a negative. I never understood that. In the long run, the most highly regarded companies prioritize shareholder returns. The idea that they should waste money on developing a car seems crazy.
anonzzzies 2y ago
Siri has never been good at anything. Apple fans (other than me) gushed over it for years; now no one I know uses it or mentions it anymore. I like apple hardware but xcode, siri, icloud, apple mail; all terrible stuff imho. Siri wins though; it's even hard these days (with llms and other natural language processing) to make something so bad.
- addicted 2y ago
  Did anyone gush about it at any point though. Siri is probably one of the most, rightfully, panned product of all time. Even the day it was released it was panned because it was a gimped version of the app Apple had bought from the App Store. I don’t think it’s reached parity with the original 3rd party Siri to date (I believe you could, for example, buy movie tickets with the original Siri, which the Apple Siri hasn't ever been capable of doing).
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    The keynote in 2011 seemed to attract a lot of gushing.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - CharlesW 2y ago
    > Siri is probably one of the most, rightfully, panned product of all time. Maybe a tie with Newton's handwriting recognition? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6qxixgQJ4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6qxixgQJ4M
- drdeca 2y ago
  When it used to have Wolfram|Alpha integration, that part was sorta good? Not sure why they dropped it so quickly.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Siri works for the only thing I care about it for - hands free commands like setting timers, reminders, directions, choosing playlists and calling and messaging people - including replies. Mostly when I’m driving or when I don’t have my phone on me and just using my Watch on cellular. Yes I know what ChatGPT can do and I use it all of the time.
rowanseymour 2y ago
I setup a couple of HomePods recently and smart switches despite warnings from friends that Siri wasn't as good as the other options.. and it's been frustrating. Maybe it's our accents but just basic stuff like asking for a timer often ends up in playing a song.
etothet 2y ago
Can we please recognize that for all the people who call out Gruber for being an Apple shill (I don’t think he is) here he is being severely critical of Apple (which he does plenty often)?
- thomassmith65 2y ago
  He both can effectively be a 'shill' while also publishing the occasional critical article. What makes daringfireball toothless isn't the ratio of praise to criticism. It's Gruber's occasional willingness to defend the absurd.
  - etothet 2y ago
    Can you provide an example of this?
    - thomassmith65 2y ago
      Skimming the daringfireball archive (https://daringfireball.net/archive https://daringfireball.net/archive) there's around one post every couple months I would choose as an example, but... there is no way to quantify exactly how 'absurd' any specific example is, so it would be inherently a frustrating discussion.
      - etothet 2y ago
        This doesn't really serve as an example.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
One particularly frustrating category of errors is mistaking the content of my message/reminder/calendar appt as the actual requested action. "Siri in two hours remind me to: [do X]" I'm sorry I can't do X "Siri send message to wife: [message]" I'm sorry I can't do [message] This error type seemed to increase with the advent of Apple Intelligence
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Those two examples both worked for me.
  - ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
    They totally work most of the time, it's just that sometimes they don't, which is frustrating
scarface_74 2y ago
But but, but Gruber is supposed to be an Apple apologist according to HN. I am confused…
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jgruber 2y ago
  Stopped clock right twice a day, perhaps.
htrp 2y ago
>What hadn’t occurred to me until now is that not only is OpenAI getting no money from Apple out of this arrangement, but that the net brand equity they’re getting from it might be negative. These Super Bowl and high school basketball queries are handled perfectly by ChatGPT when using it directly — but Siri’s attribution makes it look like ChatGPT is to blame for these utterly and at times laughably wrong bungled answers. As it stands, Apple is getting a scapegoat more than a partner out of this deal. apple intelligence has always been a way to look good doing AI while not taking responsibility
- CharlesW 2y ago
  It's bad because they're taking responsibility. Image Playground sucks because the training corpus consists only of imagery that they've created or otherwise have rights to. Siri sucks¹ because they're still handing most requests on-device, even for people who've turned on ChatGPT integration. What you're seeing is a company knowingly shedding short-term reputation points as they build a longer-term privacy-respecting solution. ¹ FWIW, Siri correctly answered all the "Who won Superbowl [n]" questions I threw at it just now on-device with iOS 18.3.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
It’s not just Siri. With recent updates it has become obvious that iOS as a whole is getting worse. It’s not just the photos app in iOS 18 either - there are many annoyances all over the OS. As far as “intelligence” goes, I’ve also noticed that other ML powered features like typing and text prediction are worse on iOS today than in the past. Meanwhile support services like iCloud continue to have issues themselves - for example sync is completely broken on windows and has been this way for years. I’m not sure what Apple is doing anymore. The hardware has been commoditized so if they aren’t competing on software, how are their outrageous margins defensible?

76 points by rgovostes 2y ago

I'm curious if anyone who's ex-Apple could briefly (without breaking any rules) describe why Siri is so bad compared to competitors.

scarface_74 2y ago
All of the intent based bots are bad. None of them use any form of “AI”. You give them all a list of phrases to match (utterances) with variable parts (slots) and map them to “intents”. You can build much better systems with LLMs now. I’ve built a few for call centers (Amazon Lex + Connect + Bedrock)
- nytesky 2y ago
  I was going to say similarly, what competitors are better. Alexa or Cortana or Hey Google? Google is maybe a little better but none are ChatGPT which is a different thing I thought the whole point of Apple Intelligence was to have ChatGPT as backend for Siri, but this does not seem that?
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    Siri is suppose to be routing “world knowledge” to Siri. The LLM based Siri that can handle internal phone actions won’t be available until next year. This is an example I put together in response to annother submission on HN a few days ago. https://chatgpt.com/share/678bab08-f3a0-8010-82e0-32cff9c0b428 https://chatgpt.com/share/678bab08-f3a0-8010-82e0-32cff9c0b4... In the real world, you would give a prompt that could handle multiple intents and properties (slots) for the intent.
- amazingamazing 2y ago
  Siri is uniquely bad. If you have an iPhone, try asking it to pause and resume repeatedly. Sometimes it will say that it cannot do that (pause), but then the sound pauses anyway. Ditto with resuming.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    I just did it while playing music on my phone and video playing in the background. I initiated with “Hey Siri”. I’m running the latest version of iOS. But honestly, most of the time I either take an Airpod out of my ear, click on the AirPod stem, use my watch if I’m running to control volume, playback, or use the steering wheel controls on my car.
CamperBob2 2y ago
Any tool that empowers the user can be misused. Apple is so terrified that you'll misuse their technology that they spend most of their engineering effort preventing you from getting things done with it. Hence, Siri. Of course this is sustainable only as long as they have no competition. But even the post-Jobs Apple has a limited glide ratio. They will eventually find that the walls they've built are better at confining the company itself than at corraling its customers.
wetpaws 2y ago
[dead]

netsharc 2y ago

It's not Siri, but I'm surprised they didn't immediately kill a feature which alerted people with misleading headlines like "Luigi Mangione shoots himself" or that Rafael Nadal has come out as gay. An using the BBC's icon next to them! Steve Jobs would've stormed into that team's office and dropped a grenade... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/07/apple-update-ai-inaccurate-news-alerts-bbc-apple-intelligence-iphone https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/07/apple-upd... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cge93de21n0o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cge93de21n0o > The BBC first complained to the tech giant about its journalism being misrepresented in December but Apple did not respond until Monday [January 6], when it said it was working to clarify that summaries were AI-generated.

dialup_sounds 2y ago
Not to defend the output--notification summaries clearly need work--but it used the BBC icon because it was summarizing the 20+ alerts sent to that user by the BBC app.
- sieabahlpark 2y ago
  [dead]
sgerenser 2y ago
Apple recently announced they are disabling AI notification summaries for news apps in response to these high profile incidents. Seems like the entire feature should be rethought.
- canucker2016 2y ago
  According to https://www.macrumors.com/2025/01/21/macos-sequoia-15-3-apple-intelligence-opt-out/ https://www.macrumors.com/2025/01/21/macos-sequoia-15-3-appl..., macOS 15.3 and iOS 18.3 enable Apple Intelligence automatically on install for supported devices. User must disable to opt-out. Flippant corporate Apple response to article, "You're asking it wrong."

denkmoon 2y ago

I’d settle for it not resuming my audiobook when I ask for music :’)

Havoc 2y ago

Really seems like apple missed this time with their usually "we're not first, but we're the best when we do show up strat" on AI.

addicted 2y ago
They aren’t even not the best. They’re well below par. For example, Gruber shows that Apple Intelligence which uses ChatGPT, will give the wrong answers for questions which ChatGPT itself is right 100% of the time. It requires effort to be that bad.

retskrad 2y ago

Why do we still hold Apple as a company in high regard when they remain incredibly inert, bowing to investor pressure to add generative AI features they are ill-equipped to handle as an institution, while prioritizing stock buybacks and dividends over innovating new products or developing a car or actually making a VR headset the market wants? Last year they released AirPods Max 2, a 4 year old headphone at the time, with the only change being new colors and USB-c and the same price tag. If that’s not the perfect picture of Apple under Tim Cook.

noch 2y ago
> Why do we still hold Apple as a company in high regard […] There is no "we". There's just a market (of products and of company shares) in which anyone can put their money where their preferences are and express their opinion.
thejazzman 2y ago
the new airpods max also lost support for wired audio
nradov 2y ago
It's so weird that some people see stock buybacks and dividends as a negative. I never understood that. In the long run, the most highly regarded companies prioritize shareholder returns. The idea that they should waste money on developing a car seems crazy.

anonzzzies 2y ago

Siri has never been good at anything. Apple fans (other than me) gushed over it for years; now no one I know uses it or mentions it anymore. I like apple hardware but xcode, siri, icloud, apple mail; all terrible stuff imho. Siri wins though; it's even hard these days (with llms and other natural language processing) to make something so bad.

addicted 2y ago
Did anyone gush about it at any point though. Siri is probably one of the most, rightfully, panned product of all time. Even the day it was released it was panned because it was a gimped version of the app Apple had bought from the App Store. I don’t think it’s reached parity with the original 3rd party Siri to date (I believe you could, for example, buy movie tickets with the original Siri, which the Apple Siri hasn't ever been capable of doing).
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  The keynote in 2011 seemed to attract a lot of gushing.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- CharlesW 2y ago
  > Siri is probably one of the most, rightfully, panned product of all time. Maybe a tie with Newton's handwriting recognition? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6qxixgQJ4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6qxixgQJ4M
drdeca 2y ago
When it used to have Wolfram|Alpha integration, that part was sorta good? Not sure why they dropped it so quickly.
scarface_74 2y ago
Siri works for the only thing I care about it for - hands free commands like setting timers, reminders, directions, choosing playlists and calling and messaging people - including replies. Mostly when I’m driving or when I don’t have my phone on me and just using my Watch on cellular. Yes I know what ChatGPT can do and I use it all of the time.

rowanseymour 2y ago

I setup a couple of HomePods recently and smart switches despite warnings from friends that Siri wasn't as good as the other options.. and it's been frustrating. Maybe it's our accents but just basic stuff like asking for a timer often ends up in playing a song.

etothet 2y ago

Can we please recognize that for all the people who call out Gruber for being an Apple shill (I don’t think he is) here he is being severely critical of Apple (which he does plenty often)?

thomassmith65 2y ago
He both can effectively be a 'shill' while also publishing the occasional critical article. What makes daringfireball toothless isn't the ratio of praise to criticism. It's Gruber's occasional willingness to defend the absurd.
- etothet 2y ago
  Can you provide an example of this?
  - thomassmith65 2y ago
    Skimming the daringfireball archive (https://daringfireball.net/archive https://daringfireball.net/archive) there's around one post every couple months I would choose as an example, but... there is no way to quantify exactly how 'absurd' any specific example is, so it would be inherently a frustrating discussion.
    - etothet 2y ago
      This doesn't really serve as an example.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]

ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago

One particularly frustrating category of errors is mistaking the content of my message/reminder/calendar appt as the actual requested action. "Siri in two hours remind me to: [do X]" I'm sorry I can't do X "Siri send message to wife: [message]" I'm sorry I can't do [message] This error type seemed to increase with the advent of Apple Intelligence

scarface_74 2y ago
Those two examples both worked for me.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
  They totally work most of the time, it's just that sometimes they don't, which is frustrating

scarface_74 2y ago

But but, but Gruber is supposed to be an Apple apologist according to HN. I am confused…

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jgruber 2y ago
Stopped clock right twice a day, perhaps.

htrp 2y ago

>What hadn’t occurred to me until now is that not only is OpenAI getting no money from Apple out of this arrangement, but that the net brand equity they’re getting from it might be negative. These Super Bowl and high school basketball queries are handled perfectly by ChatGPT when using it directly — but Siri’s attribution makes it look like ChatGPT is to blame for these utterly and at times laughably wrong bungled answers. As it stands, Apple is getting a scapegoat more than a partner out of this deal. apple intelligence has always been a way to look good doing AI while not taking responsibility

CharlesW 2y ago
It's bad because they're taking responsibility. Image Playground sucks because the training corpus consists only of imagery that they've created or otherwise have rights to. Siri sucks¹ because they're still handing most requests on-device, even for people who've turned on ChatGPT integration. What you're seeing is a company knowingly shedding short-term reputation points as they build a longer-term privacy-respecting solution. ¹ FWIW, Siri correctly answered all the "Who won Superbowl [n]" questions I threw at it just now on-device with iOS 18.3.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

It’s not just Siri. With recent updates it has become obvious that iOS as a whole is getting worse. It’s not just the photos app in iOS 18 either - there are many annoyances all over the OS. As far as “intelligence” goes, I’ve also noticed that other ML powered features like typing and text prediction are worse on iOS today than in the past. Meanwhile support services like iCloud continue to have issues themselves - for example sync is completely broken on windows and has been this way for years. I’m not sure what Apple is doing anymore. The hardware has been commoditized so if they aren’t competing on software, how are their outrageous margins defensible?