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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 hardwa

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.
- dangus 2y ago
  This is another major point about these AI products. Not only do they barely work as far as accuracy and consistency, but even if they did, they aren’t being built to perform functions that are in demand. They are solutions without pain points. Why is someone going to use a hands-free assistant? Who would want to talk to a computer, which is an awkward thing to do? Outside of accessibility reasons, the only reason to use something hands free is when…your hands aren’t free! Cooking, driving, etc…that’s why timers and driving directions and putting on playlists is all anyone wants out of their voice assistant. Apple might spend millions of dollars fixing the Super Bowl question only to find out that nobody actually wants to ask Siri that question, because I can just type that into Google or Wikipedia or something like that. Using my voice doesn’t save time or effort and it’s not discreet.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    I do it because setting a timer via the app is too much friction. On this current iPhone if I type “clock” into spotlight it actually takes a few seconds to return clock. Never happened on my 6s that phone was instant with spotlight.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    Even accessibility reasons are important by themselves. Almost everyone if they live long enough will lose some ability with their hands. My dad used Google’s voice search exclusively on his Android to look up YouTube videos. The first thing I installed on his iPhone 16 Plus was the Google app. He uses voice for everything that would require typing. Google and search is a shit show. I’ve completely stopped using search for anything moderately complicated and have been using the paid version of ChatGPT since it integrated web search almost two years ago. There is a lot of trivia that people want to use their voice for. Siri use to be good at that and gave you reliable answers by going directly to bespoke data sources for it. It’s much easier to tell Siri “remind me to get the milk out of the back seat when I get out of the car” (or get in the car, get home, etc) than configure that manually. That works as long as usually pair your phone with the car over Bluetooth.
nytesky 2y ago
iCloud and Apple mail I use because my family is all in on Apple devices (teens!) so photo sync and music just work better with Apple, and the domain support for Apple mail is nice (outlook dropped that, Gmail costs a lot more, and my family can’t grok fastmail). But it’s death but a thousand cuts I know they throw shade on interoperability but I wish they would just make iCloud for web sort of work. You can’t create Task lists, only tasks on existing lists, you can’t attach PDF to Notes, you can’t download or upload a folder. It’s endless. And iCloud sync on windows, ice pick to noggin…
- nytesky 2y ago
  I was just curious to compare plans, and Apple Music family is $17 while Spotify family is $20. I know Spotify is “cooler” so worth the premium? I thought similar catalogs except now exclusive podcasts and maybe free audiobooks (are those good audiobooks or random authors?) We actually usable Apple One, because spouse likes the News App, Kids like TV and Arcade and Fitness, so it’s not a bad value but it is hefty cost that keeps rising.
  - butlike 2y ago
    Spotify is more ubiquitous, so you can end up syncing to things like Playstations and stuff like that. Never really seen Apple music on non-apple devices.
    - nytesky 2y ago
      Well it works fine on our Alexa and Google Home. I see that is useful if you have more heterogeneous tech.
ninininino 2y ago
Siri is great at setting reminders (I see it's my friends birthday tomorrow or next week and want to remember to call them, I immediately say "Hey Siri, remind me on Tuesday at 1pm to text ____ happy birthday'), good when I start a load of laundry in my apartment building's communal basement laundry room, "Hey Siri, set a timer for 46 minutes", good at "Hey Siri, turn the lights off everywhere" to get the lights off using Homekit (now called Home?) when I'm in bed. Siri is great at "Hey Siri next song" when I'm listening to my Spotify discover weekly and don't like what it's playing and that is way easier than pulling my phone out and tapping a button. I would argue Humans are bad at Siri, more than Siri is bad at ____.
- bhj 2y ago
  You can set it so you don’t need the “hey” anymore. Tough habit to break though…
  - ninininino 2y ago
    Actually seems like by default it already accepts just Siri from me.
add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
Apple seems to regularly have crappy software that you're de facto locked into if you want their hardware. I care so much more about software. There's no hardware benefit that would get me to use iTunes.
- butlike 2y ago
  It's insane how bad iTunes got. It was one of the better music players circa ~2007 (iTunes 7)
  - renewedrebecca 2y ago
    Yeah, I don't want a streaming app. I just want to be able to easily play the music I already have.
m463 2y ago
My impression is that siri was purchased because it was speech recognition and text to speech. It seems that understanding what is asked is too much to expect, it doesn't seem part of the design.
7bit 2y ago
I prefer Siri to Google Assistant. The latter is the epitome of retardedness. At least when used in German. "Hey Google, new appointment tomorrow at 14 o'clock: Clean kitchen." This used to work fine 7 years ago. Today this creates an appointment at fucking 2 in the morning and asks you what you want to name it. With Siri I don't have any of these problems.

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.

dangus 2y ago
This is another major point about these AI products. Not only do they barely work as far as accuracy and consistency, but even if they did, they aren’t being built to perform functions that are in demand. They are solutions without pain points. Why is someone going to use a hands-free assistant? Who would want to talk to a computer, which is an awkward thing to do? Outside of accessibility reasons, the only reason to use something hands free is when…your hands aren’t free! Cooking, driving, etc…that’s why timers and driving directions and putting on playlists is all anyone wants out of their voice assistant. Apple might spend millions of dollars fixing the Super Bowl question only to find out that nobody actually wants to ask Siri that question, because I can just type that into Google or Wikipedia or something like that. Using my voice doesn’t save time or effort and it’s not discreet.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  I do it because setting a timer via the app is too much friction. On this current iPhone if I type “clock” into spotlight it actually takes a few seconds to return clock. Never happened on my 6s that phone was instant with spotlight.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Even accessibility reasons are important by themselves. Almost everyone if they live long enough will lose some ability with their hands. My dad used Google’s voice search exclusively on his Android to look up YouTube videos. The first thing I installed on his iPhone 16 Plus was the Google app. He uses voice for everything that would require typing. Google and search is a shit show. I’ve completely stopped using search for anything moderately complicated and have been using the paid version of ChatGPT since it integrated web search almost two years ago. There is a lot of trivia that people want to use their voice for. Siri use to be good at that and gave you reliable answers by going directly to bespoke data sources for it. It’s much easier to tell Siri “remind me to get the milk out of the back seat when I get out of the car” (or get in the car, get home, etc) than configure that manually. That works as long as usually pair your phone with the car over Bluetooth.

nytesky 2y ago

iCloud and Apple mail I use because my family is all in on Apple devices (teens!) so photo sync and music just work better with Apple, and the domain support for Apple mail is nice (outlook dropped that, Gmail costs a lot more, and my family can’t grok fastmail). But it’s death but a thousand cuts I know they throw shade on interoperability but I wish they would just make iCloud for web sort of work. You can’t create Task lists, only tasks on existing lists, you can’t attach PDF to Notes, you can’t download or upload a folder. It’s endless. And iCloud sync on windows, ice pick to noggin…

nytesky 2y ago
I was just curious to compare plans, and Apple Music family is $17 while Spotify family is $20. I know Spotify is “cooler” so worth the premium? I thought similar catalogs except now exclusive podcasts and maybe free audiobooks (are those good audiobooks or random authors?) We actually usable Apple One, because spouse likes the News App, Kids like TV and Arcade and Fitness, so it’s not a bad value but it is hefty cost that keeps rising.
- butlike 2y ago
  Spotify is more ubiquitous, so you can end up syncing to things like Playstations and stuff like that. Never really seen Apple music on non-apple devices.
  - nytesky 2y ago
    Well it works fine on our Alexa and Google Home. I see that is useful if you have more heterogeneous tech.

ninininino 2y ago

Siri is great at setting reminders (I see it's my friends birthday tomorrow or next week and want to remember to call them, I immediately say "Hey Siri, remind me on Tuesday at 1pm to text ____ happy birthday'), good when I start a load of laundry in my apartment building's communal basement laundry room, "Hey Siri, set a timer for 46 minutes", good at "Hey Siri, turn the lights off everywhere" to get the lights off using Homekit (now called Home?) when I'm in bed. Siri is great at "Hey Siri next song" when I'm listening to my Spotify discover weekly and don't like what it's playing and that is way easier than pulling my phone out and tapping a button. I would argue Humans are bad at Siri, more than Siri is bad at ____.

bhj 2y ago
You can set it so you don’t need the “hey” anymore. Tough habit to break though…
- ninininino 2y ago
  Actually seems like by default it already accepts just Siri from me.

add-sub-mul-div 2y ago

Apple seems to regularly have crappy software that you're de facto locked into if you want their hardware. I care so much more about software. There's no hardware benefit that would get me to use iTunes.

butlike 2y ago
It's insane how bad iTunes got. It was one of the better music players circa ~2007 (iTunes 7)
- renewedrebecca 2y ago
  Yeah, I don't want a streaming app. I just want to be able to easily play the music I already have.

m463 2y ago

My impression is that siri was purchased because it was speech recognition and text to speech. It seems that understanding what is asked is too much to expect, it doesn't seem part of the design.

7bit 2y ago

I prefer Siri to Google Assistant. The latter is the epitome of retardedness. At least when used in German. "Hey Google, new appointment tomorrow at 14 o'clock: Clean kitchen." This used to work fine 7 years ago. Today this creates an appointment at fucking 2 in the morning and asks you what you want to name it. With Siri I don't have any of these problems.