Amaya Toman There is no doubt that Apple's virtual voice assistant Siri is a great idea. But the application of this idea in practice is a little worse. Even after years of improvement and work, Siri has its indisputable flaws. How could Apple improve it?
Siri is becoming an increasingly important part of the Apple ecosystem, but many criticize her for many things. When the smart speaker produced by the Apple company Home Pod saw the light of day, a number of experts and lay users pronounced the verdict on it: "Great speaker - it's just a shame Siri". It seems that in this direction, Apple needs to catch up with its competitors and take inspiration from them.
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David Hanak Apple has significant credit for the way voice assistants have become a part of people's lives. Apple's voice assistant has been talked about for a long time, but it only became popular in 2011 as part of the iPhone 4s. Since then, she has come a long way, but she still has a long way to go.
Support for multiple users
Multi-user support is something that, if done right, could propel Siri to the top of the list of personal assistants – HomePod would especially need this feature. For devices such as the Apple Watch, iPhone, or iPad, recognition of multiple users is not necessary, but with the HomePod, it is assumed that it will be used by several members of the household or employees of the workplace - to the detriment, multi-user support might not even be available on the Mac. While this may seem insecure at first glance, the opposite is true, as if Siri learns to differentiate between individual users, it will reduce the likelihood of unauthorized access to sensitive data. The fact that multi-user works great with voice assistants is evidenced by competitors Alexa or Google Home.
Even better answers
Countless jokes have already been made on the subject of Siri's ability to answer various questions, and even the most ardent fans of the Cupertino company and its products recognize that Siri does not really excel in this discipline. But asking questions is not only for fun - it can greatly speed up and facilitate the process of searching for basic information on the web. In terms of answering questions, Google Assistant still leads without competition, but with a little effort and investment in research and development from Apple, Siri could easily catch up.
“Siri, play…”¨
The arrival of the HomePod has further strengthened the need to connect Siri with music apps. It is logical that Apple prefers to work with its own Apple Music platform, but even here Siri's performance is not the best, especially compared to the competition. Siri has problems recognizing voice, song titles and other elements. According to Cult Of Mac, Siri works reliably 70% of the time, which sounds great until you realize how little you value a technology you use every day, but it fails three times out of ten.
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Siri the translator
Translation is one of the directions in which Siri has rapidly improved, but it still has some reserves. It can currently translate from English to French, German, Italian, Standard Chinese and Spanish. However, this is only a one-way translation and the translations do not work for British English.
Integrate, integrate, integrate
It is logical that Apple wants its customers to primarily use Apple products and services. Blocking third-party services on the HomePod is an unwelcome but understandable measure. But wouldn't Apple do better if it allowed Siri to integrate with third-party apps and services? Although this option has officially existed since 2016, its possibilities are quite limited, in some ways Siri fails completely - for example, you can't use it to update your Facebook status or send a tweet. The number of activities you can do through Siri with third-party apps is currently far fewer than Amazon's Alexa offers.
More timing options
The ability to set multiple timers may seem like a small thing. But it's also the easiest thing Apple could do to improve Siri. Setting multiple timers at the same time for multiple tasks is key not just for cooking – and it's also something that the likes of Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa handle with ease.
How bad is Siri?
Siri is not bad. In fact, Siri is actually still a very popular virtual voice assistant, and that's why it deserves more care and continuous improvement. In conjunction with the HomePod, it would then have the potential to easily overcome the competition - and there is no reason why Apple should not strive for this victory.
Source: cultofmac
Multi-user support for the HomePod does make sense. Personally, I would be content at home to listen to everyone (on public requests such as play music, what time is it, set an alarm clock/timer, etc.).
For example, with the iPad, I would have divided it into 2 units, but I needed it a long time ago! I would need to switch settings between adult and child. This is being done in a completely insane way, and Apple should get the hell out of it! Of course, it doesn't make much sense with a watch or an iPhone, because people don't borrow them that much.
Sorry for a possibly stupid question, but I couldn't find it. Can Siri on the iPhone simply dial a number, make a call, and end the call without me touching the phone in any way. And the same goes for SMS: do I need to send an empty SMS or a predefined text to the selected phone number or numbers? Thanks