Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who has regularly assessed Siri's accuracy in terms of correctly interpreting and answering queries, has issued the latest version of his Siri report card, noting that Siri has continued to improve under iOS 7, particularly in terms of being able to properly interpret questions being asked.
The primary improvement between Siri in iOS 6 and iOS 7 came from its performance in noisier areas, where Siri was able to translate better through a noisy environment (94% vs. 83% correct in Aug iOS 6). Based on our testing, iOS 7 Siri's net ability to answer questions (factors in questions not correctly understood) improved to 79% from 77% in August with iOS 6.
The improvements in Siri's understanding come alongside but separate from Apple's continued efforts to reduce its reliance on Google, as evidenced by Siri's shift to emphasize Bing, Wikipedia, and WolframAlpha results. In Munster's most recent testing, only 4 percent of Siri's answers relied on Google, compared to 17 percent in August testing and 27 percent in December 2012.
Click for larger
Munster also compares Siri to Google Now, finding that the two services are now essentially tied in effectiveness with a "C+" score after Siri held a substantial lead in the year-ago testing. In the latest testing, Google Now held small leads in content areas such as commerce and information, while Siri performed significantly better for operating system controls.
There is no way these charts are accurate. Even when I speak as clearly as possible and enunciate every syllable, Siri understands me about 40% of the time.
I get 90% accuracy, I don't know what's going on with you.
There is no way these charts are accurate. Even when I speak as clearly as possible and enunciate every syllable, Siri understands me about 40% of the time.
The one thing I will greatly defend Apple and Siri for is trying to understand people's voices. People either have a strong accent, speak with a lisp, speak too fast, speak too slow, speak with a low register voice, have an annoying voice, mumble their words, garble their words and most of all they try and use Siri in a noisy atmosphere along with any of the above.
No matter what, it's still an electronic device and people just have to learn to speak properly based on the source or just don't use as you've appeared to do. You say you have no need for voice control, it's not just about voice control. Many times I need to look up sports scores, it's much faster and easier just to ask Siri the game stats than typing them in or opening an app and searching.
Never defend a technology! Technology is meant to develop to serve the requirements/limitations of existing human behaviour; human behaviour shouldn't be expected to adapt to meet the requirements/limitations of technology.
I have had the opposite experience. After seeing steady improvement in Siri, it has recently gotten worse and become almost unusable for me.
Specifically, I use Siri a lot to play music in the car. I will say "Play Song X" or "Play Album Y". Siri used to be pretty good at hearing the name of the song and finding it in my music library. Now it frequently hear the names incorrectly. Even when it does hear the correct name, it will play a song with a completely different name or simply say "Sorry, I couldn't find that in your music". What do you mean you couldn't find David Bowie in my music??? It's right there!
This regression is quite infuriating. Also, Siri still often fails to respond ("Sorry, there's something wrong") or take 20+ seconds to respond with the wrong answer. I believe we need to give all of Apple's web services time to gather data and make iterative improvements, but I have very little tolerance when they actually get worse over time.
I don't know, that net percentage increase (4% better) year over year seems kind of low to me. Am I the only one who feels that way? Not my field of study, so I'm not entirely sure if this is supposed to be impressive.
Sunday January 23, 2022 10:32 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple is working on a number of new products that are set to launch this fall, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that it will be "the widest array" of new devices that Apple has introduced in its history.
In his latest "Power On" newsletter, Gurman explains that Apple is working on four new flagship iPhones (iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Max, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max), an updated low-end Ma...
Sunday January 23, 2022 2:59 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple has always emphasized the depth of thought that goes into the design of its products. In the foreword to Designed by Apple in California, a photo book released by the company in 2016, Jony Ive explains how Apple strives "to define objects that appear effortless" and "so simple, coherent and inevitable that there could be no rational alternative."
But every once in a while even Apple...
Three months after their launch, the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros continue to experience high demand and seemingly short supply, with shipping dates for both models stretching into multiple weeks in several of Apple's key markets.
In the United States, the baseline 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro chip is estimated to ship in three to four weeks, promising an arrival by at least...
Monday January 24, 2022 9:20 am PST by Juli Clover
AT&T today announced the launch of upgraded AT&T Fiber plans, which support speeds of up to 5 Gigabits for some customers. There are two separate plans, one "2 GIG" plan and one "5 GIG" plan, available to new and existing AT&T Fiber subscribers.
According to AT&T, the new plans are available to nearly 5.2 million customers across 70 metro areas including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, San...
Apple's AirPods have been credited with saving a woman's life after a potentially fatal fall, People reports.
When a 60-year-old florist in New Jersey tripped and hit her head in her studio, she lost consciousness and awoke heavily bleeding. With nobody around to call for help, she realized she had her AirPods in, and used a "Hey Siri" command to call 911. An operator was able to stay on the ...
Apple's second-generation AirPods Pro could deliver higher fidelity audio than the AirPods Max over-ear headphones, despite being comparatively small in-ear buds, recent reports have suggested.
In a recent note to investors, seen by MacRumors, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claimed that the second-generation AirPods Pro will offer improved audio quality thanks to support...
Monday January 24, 2022 10:15 am PST by Juli Clover
A number of developers are upset with an increasingly problematic iCloud server issue that is causing some apps that have implemented iCloud support to fail to sync properly.
As outlined on the Developer Forums and on Twitter, there are CloudKit connectivity issues that have been occurring since November. Some users of apps that have iCloud support built in are seeing the following message:...
As we roll into the latter half of January, we're starting to hear more about a potential spring Apple event, which is likely to take place in March or April. There are a number of potential announcements on deck, so an event would be a good opportunity for Apple to get them all out there.
We've also been going back and forth on some iPhone 14 rumors, and we've taken a look at a number of...
Top Rated Comments
I get 90% accuracy, I don't know what's going on with you.
Never defend a technology! Technology is meant to develop to serve the requirements/limitations of existing human behaviour; human behaviour shouldn't be expected to adapt to meet the requirements/limitations of technology.
Specifically, I use Siri a lot to play music in the car. I will say "Play Song X" or "Play Album Y". Siri used to be pretty good at hearing the name of the song and finding it in my music library. Now it frequently hear the names incorrectly. Even when it does hear the correct name, it will play a song with a completely different name or simply say "Sorry, I couldn't find that in your music". What do you mean you couldn't find David Bowie in my music??? It's right there!
This regression is quite infuriating. Also, Siri still often fails to respond ("Sorry, there's something wrong") or take 20+ seconds to respond with the wrong answer. I believe we need to give all of Apple's web services time to gather data and make iterative improvements, but I have very little tolerance when they actually get worse over time.