We joined the over 4 million people last weekend and picked up an iPhone 4S. And like others who bought this phone we fed into the hype of the "Let's Talk iPhone" event. We were tantalized by Cupertino's latest innovation (Siri) and the idea of a real personal assistant to help set reminders, text the wife, guide us to the nearest sushi restaurant...it all seemed perfect...maybe too perfect...
When our iPhone arrived in the mail we were ready to put Siri through the paces and already had ideas on how she was going to change the way we do things. We spent some good quality time with Siri alright, but unlike all the other blogs and reviews you've probably read it's not all roses. In fact, we're here to break it to you straight, and tell you that Siri doesn't live up to the hype. Here's why....
1. Siri doesn't get me
Our first thought was that the voice-to-action dynamic would be ideal for the car.
Example: Imagine you're driving with attention on the road, and suddenly find inspiration or need to take an action requiring the phone. Simple. Just hold down the Home button and beckon Siri to jot down some notes and reminders. Pretty basic, not too demanding. Siri should be able to handle that, right?
False.
In fact, we attempted to take 48 notes while driving from Austin to Dallas this weekend and you know how many of them made sense when we returned home to review? Eight. Yeah, the ocho.
Not a very good percentage, especially when you realize the notes that didn't "make sense" were really indecipherable nonsense.
Here's a few that we found the most amusing...
"Take it up the gift to Brad" is our personal favorite. Since this was our last reminder we know we were trying to set a reminder to "Call Cynthia when I get to my Parent's house."
And you thought the iPhone predictive text was bad?
*Note: we consider ourselves fairly well-spoken individuals, without strong accents, and no issues with people understanding our speech.
2. Siri is impatient
Siri doesn't like to give you much time to formulate a thought. She'll shut you out mid-sentence or just turn her head and stop talking to you in a conversation.
Something like "Take a note that says....I hope Siri can do dictation well" will leave you hearing the Siri beep at that half second pause you made while trying to figure how exactly you wanted to phrase something. So you can't hesitate with her.
Maybe the whole reason all the voice stuff hasn't worked so well before is because we do things differently in speech compared with typing. When we type we have a few extra seconds to formulate a thought, compose things in our head, and those seconds are lost when trying to do voice commands. It's just not natural. We've been typing on keyboards for most of our lives but giving voice commands is something that's just come about the past few years. Maybe we'll adapt, but we're not quite convinced yet.
3. Siri has over-protective parents
We understand she's never been kissed (aka "in beta") but Siri's parent's are strict and a bit tought to deal with. No talking or playing with strangers (3rd party apps) and no doing anything besides previously approved activities (basically anything you didn't see them do at the press conference).
We're sure they'll lighten up soon. But it's a bit of buzzkill when you realize that cool date you had in mind isn't an approved activity by the house of Apple.
4. Siri is kind of lazy
It seems Siri doesn't want to go through a heck of a lot of effort to help you out. If she thinks a request you ask for requires more than one or two steps, she'll shut the door on you. You want to call somebody (or someplace)? They better be listed as a contact because Siri isn't going to do a search for you and find it. (We actually could get Siri to do a search for some places, but it was like 1 in 10 and we haven't quite figured out the logic of what she can and can't find yet).
You'll also find that Siri won't look up opening and closing times for places yet, and even worse she won't continue dialogue in many conversations.
Some examples of our turmoil...
Unplggd: What's a good Italian restaurant in the area?
Siri: Here are italian restaurants I found for you...
Unplggd: OK, call the nearest one.
Siri: Sorry, I'm one and done.
Unplggd: D'oh!
Of course, Apple is all hush-hush about what Siri can and can't do. So here's a picture of Siri's limitations we've uncovered from our experience...
Things with a big red "X" on them are not supported, and we circled "Reminders" in green, because that's the only app that'll let you make an action with options. As in, do that action sometime in the future, or at a specific place. All other apps require you to make that action immediately. No texting someone when you arrive somewhere.
Final Thoughts
So thats a summary of our first week with Siri, and needless to say our relationship status officially changed to "its complicated."
Maybe we just need to see other people for a little bit and have some time to learn what we want from each other. Perhaps one day we'll work through our differences, each make some concessions, and end up at a happy medium.
We also realize that the mere fact Apple has us thinking about interacting with the phone in new ways, is a bit of a game changer. The product just isn't quite there yet and the hype has gotten ahead of the truth (for now). But, call us optimistic, or even dreamers, because we're not ruling out true love just yet.
All photos by Chris Perez
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I think its important to note that it is still in beta
Usually, computer companies don't base a national prime time television ad around "beta" functionality. Specially one where they show the "beta" functionality performing absolutely flawlessly...
It shows that Apple is really feeling the heat from Android and is having a difficult time differentiating against the wide range of Android-based smartphones.
I don't know why this is surprising. How many years/decades have companies told us their voice recognition works amazingly only to find out it doesn't work at all.
i'm finding that siri works amazingly well. it does what i ask and tells me, politely, when it "can not compute."
i think the beep that you keep speaking of, the one that interrupts you mid-sentence, is your queue to start your instruction.
and then the accents... the tech world has immigrants..
Beta is beta.
noone ever seems to criticize Google's software when it's in beta form. I spent the better part of two days trying to get Google Music Beta to work and I'm not complaining.
I think it's just that people are slowly waking up from the hypnosis of the Reality Distortion Field.
That's surprising regarding Siri not understanding you. I have received countless messages from friends dictated by Siri with zero mistakes. You are also the first person I have heard to say this about Siri not understanding what you say and this is coming from folks 4S users with Scottish, South London, Australian, French, German, and a variety of American accents.
I loved when my brother was trying to make me jealous of his new iPhone 4s. He was demonstrating how awesome siri is by trying to get it to send me a text message. 5 tries later it worked, with incorrect dictation. Then he tried to get it to open an app and it wouldn't ... I think I will stick with my android phone.
I get it is in beta but if it is not ready why release it to the public why not keep it developers only for the mean time?
" seconds are lost when trying to do voice commands. It's just not natural. We've been typing on keyboards for most of our lives but giving voice commands is something that's just come about the past few years."
I just laughed at this so much. You know what would help? Having a social life and conversing with other human beings verbally.
Good grief. This has to be the worst tech review I've ever read.
Siri definitely becomes attuned to your voice the more that you use it. I've had no problems with it understanding me... until I let other people try it out. That seemed to throw her for a loop for a bit.
Having said that, I wouldn't judge the entire iPhone 4S based on that. It's seriously fast and the camera is killer. And if the headline is intended to be Siri-specific, it's poorly worded.
Seems your expectations are a tad high for a beta product. This holds true for many consumers who have lived without a particular function or program and then when it is released, they expect it to do more than it was designed to do. The future of utilizing Siri is limitless as development continues and she expands her capabilities within Apple apps and beyond. I predict in two years or less, we'll all be using Siri to do all sorts of things and forget about living in a world without her.
If it's a beta product, they shouldnt be creating ads for it and they shouldnt be touting it as the biggest thing for the 4S.
Incidentally, a bunch of devs at dexetra have created Iris for android. It works OK. But the killer is from start coding to delivery to Market = 8 hours ... and they've been releasing updates daily. It may be copying Apple, and they may get heat from Apple, but 8 hours. Besides, I've been able to do voice search and type with different apps and keyboards on Android for 12 months.
I was lucky enough to have a go with one, and I have always felt that I'm hard to understand but Siri had no problems with anything I asked - from the silly questions I asked, to finding out info and making notes. There were several things I couldn't attempt as it was someone else's phone (such as alarm, reminders, texting etc) but overall, I was impressed. But since my iPhone 4 is less than a year old, I'll be waiting for the iPhone 5 (I still find it hilarious everyone expected an iPhone 5 when the iPhone 4 was barely a year old. It would have been a terrible business decision.)
And all the Apple isheep run to defend a sub-par product. Lol typical
Puhleeze! No flame wars. If you don't like Apple products, don't buy them; but don't make childish generalizations about the people who do. When people praise Google products, I just assume they like them enough to purchase them; it doesn't indicate anything about their character. Ditto Apple products.
Unplggd has remained one of the few tech blogs I still read because it usually avoids articles like this (link bait/ flame war inducing). Stick to the stories about great design and smart integration of tech into our lives and leave this kind of stuff to Gawker.
3 and 4 are fair valid points but 1 and 2 have problems. 1. When you're driving on a highway their is a lot of road white noise that will drown out your commands. Don't expect this to work without a noise reducing mic. 2. You are asking it to do far more than what it is suppose to do. It won't take long messages of dictation.
I may be waking a dead comment thread, but this is an Apple product review. Nobody gives a crap if you love your Android phone. We are hear to read about an Apple product...