4 ms·

Perhaps the sky already fell a while back? I don't really mind that they aren't on the LLM bandwagon, but Siri seems to have stagnated. The big "Apple Intellig

by NBJack 10mo ago

Perhaps the sky already fell a while back? I don't really mind that they aren't on the LLM bandwagon, but Siri seems to have stagnated. The big "Apple Intelligence" capabilities of the iPhone 16 haven't exactly landed. The Vision Pro seems to be on at least a partial depreciation path. The only real innovation I've seen in the last decade has been the M line of chips. Mind you, these are undeniably really good; but even that hasn't changed the market share that much (though it is going up and trending well).

raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
Yes Siri has stagnated. But both Google and Amazon tried to add LLMs to their assistants and they are both worse now than they were before according to reports. Siri could be better if Apple just threw 10000 monkeys at it and configure it more phrases (utterances) to match on.
- aydyn 10mo ago
  > But both Google and Amazon tried to add LLMs to their assistants and they are both worse now than they were before according to reports. Link to reports? As far as I understand, google assistant is being deprecated in favor of gemini.
  - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/gemini-is-an-increasingly-good-chatbot-but-its-still-a-bad-assistant/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/gemini-is-an-increas... This is a little older. I know things improve a lot quickly. https://www.slashgear.com/1521993/google-gemini-ai-replace-smart-assistant/ https://www.slashgear.com/1521993/google-gemini-ai-replace-s...
keyle 10mo ago
Personally I prefer a useless Siri that I can turn off, rather than a copilot into everything I cannot turn off. I am perfectly fine with Apple lagging behind in "AI".
- aydyn 10mo ago
  Wouldnt you prefer a competent Siri that you can turn off? Gemini on android just works. I can ask it nearly anything in spoken natural language and it'll talk back with an answer.
  - dmonitor 10mo ago
    Siri can answer questions just fine. It's the "doing stuff" that introduces complications
  - happymellon 10mo ago
    I use the phone voice assistants to set timers, and call people when I'm driving. It is objectively worse at calling people than Assistant was. If I ask you to call someone, don't come up with a scolling list of phone numbers that I have to pick from. At least Assistant called the primary designated number for someone, Gemini just froze and wouldn't take voice commands to pick the number but forced my to pick up my phone. I turned that bullshit off a couple of days after they forced it on me without asking.
  - SXX 10mo ago
    How is Gemini on iPhone is diffetent though? Do you really use AI as assistant on the phone for anything other than fancy way to set an alarm clock? I mean not for looking up the information, but for something that alter how you use phone.
  - bigstrat2003 10mo ago
    > Gemini on android just works. Unless you want to turn it off, which I haven't been able to figure out how to do. Every now and then my phone will randomly prompt me to "ask Gemini", which is really annoying. When I want to use the LLM, I will go to it, stop shoving it in my face over and over.
    - nutjob2 10mo ago
      Just turn off Google Assistant stuff. It's always been annoying and useless to me and I've always turned it off.
trueno 10mo ago
> I don't really mind that they aren't on the LLM bandwagon it actually turned out to be the greatest boon in the milky way for me: joe consumer, apple device user. been watching the copilot saga (in my head the lore is that this is clippy hes back and hes pissed everyone treated him like buttcheeks over a decade ago) over on windows & new samsung fold phones (which look really cool) having no way to fully disable that stuff and man.. i dunno im gonna be kind of pissed if this whole shakeup is just a move to make apple start doing that same shenanigans (please no)
giancarlostoro 10mo ago
> Siri seems to have stagnated This is what bothers me about most voice assistants, I think maybe the Amazon one finally got an upgrade to modern LLM capabilities? I don't know about the Google one. I assume the cost is too high, but I don't expect ChatGPT / Grok / Claude level of knowledge from a voice assistant LLM, if they can run a drastically small enough model that doesn't cost an arm and a leg at scale, I would be okay with that. Definitely would have to cache some of the responses when viral events happen.

by NBJack 10mo ago

raw_anon_1111 10mo ago

Yes Siri has stagnated. But both Google and Amazon tried to add LLMs to their assistants and they are both worse now than they were before according to reports. Siri could be better if Apple just threw 10000 monkeys at it and configure it more phrases (utterances) to match on.

aydyn 10mo ago
> But both Google and Amazon tried to add LLMs to their assistants and they are both worse now than they were before according to reports. Link to reports? As far as I understand, google assistant is being deprecated in favor of gemini.
- raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
  https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/gemini-is-an-increasingly-good-chatbot-but-its-still-a-bad-assistant/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/gemini-is-an-increas... This is a little older. I know things improve a lot quickly. https://www.slashgear.com/1521993/google-gemini-ai-replace-smart-assistant/ https://www.slashgear.com/1521993/google-gemini-ai-replace-s...

keyle 10mo ago

Personally I prefer a useless Siri that I can turn off, rather than a copilot into everything I cannot turn off. I am perfectly fine with Apple lagging behind in "AI".

aydyn 10mo ago
Wouldnt you prefer a competent Siri that you can turn off? Gemini on android just works. I can ask it nearly anything in spoken natural language and it'll talk back with an answer.
- dmonitor 10mo ago
  Siri can answer questions just fine. It's the "doing stuff" that introduces complications
- happymellon 10mo ago
  I use the phone voice assistants to set timers, and call people when I'm driving. It is objectively worse at calling people than Assistant was. If I ask you to call someone, don't come up with a scolling list of phone numbers that I have to pick from. At least Assistant called the primary designated number for someone, Gemini just froze and wouldn't take voice commands to pick the number but forced my to pick up my phone. I turned that bullshit off a couple of days after they forced it on me without asking.
- SXX 10mo ago
  How is Gemini on iPhone is diffetent though? Do you really use AI as assistant on the phone for anything other than fancy way to set an alarm clock? I mean not for looking up the information, but for something that alter how you use phone.
- bigstrat2003 10mo ago
  > Gemini on android just works. Unless you want to turn it off, which I haven't been able to figure out how to do. Every now and then my phone will randomly prompt me to "ask Gemini", which is really annoying. When I want to use the LLM, I will go to it, stop shoving it in my face over and over.
  - nutjob2 10mo ago
    Just turn off Google Assistant stuff. It's always been annoying and useless to me and I've always turned it off.

trueno 10mo ago

> I don't really mind that they aren't on the LLM bandwagon it actually turned out to be the greatest boon in the milky way for me: joe consumer, apple device user. been watching the copilot saga (in my head the lore is that this is clippy hes back and hes pissed everyone treated him like buttcheeks over a decade ago) over on windows & new samsung fold phones (which look really cool) having no way to fully disable that stuff and man.. i dunno im gonna be kind of pissed if this whole shakeup is just a move to make apple start doing that same shenanigans (please no)

giancarlostoro 10mo ago

> Siri seems to have stagnated This is what bothers me about most voice assistants, I think maybe the Amazon one finally got an upgrade to modern LLM capabilities? I don't know about the Google one. I assume the cost is too high, but I don't expect ChatGPT / Grok / Claude level of knowledge from a voice assistant LLM, if they can run a drastically small enough model that doesn't cost an arm and a leg at scale, I would be okay with that. Definitely would have to cache some of the responses when viral events happen.