The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences today announced the recipients of the 69th annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards, with Apple winning an award in the "Contextual Voice Navigation for Discovering and Interacting with TV Content" category.
Apple received the award for the Siri voice integration built into the fourth-generation Apple TV, which allows users to search for content using voice-based commands. Other winners in the same category include Comcast, Universal Electronics (UEI), and Nuance Dragon TV.
Siri has been available on Apple TV since 2015, which is when the fourth-generation set-top box with tvOS became available for purchase. Siri has a range of functions on the device, ranging from TV show/movie/actor/topic search capabilities to features like a vocal rewind option that allows users to do things like ask "What did she say?" to jump back 15 seconds and temporarily turn on subtitles.
Siri can open apps and games, respond to typical commands for information about sports scores, movie times, weather, and more, and Siri can answer questions about movies and TV shows. "Who directed this movie?" and "Who stars in this movie?" are just a couple of examples of the kinds of queries Siri can respond to. Siri can even answer complex topic-based requests, like "Find comedies from the 80s starring Chevy Chase" or "Find movies for kids from the 90s."
Award recipients will be honored at the Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards at the National Association of Broadcasters on Sunday, April 8, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Apple plans to introduce a new fifth-generation Apple TV at its September iPhone-centric event, believed to be taking place on the 12th of the month. The fifth-generation Apple TV will continue featuring Siri support, and could even introduce new Siri-related features.
Something tells me they didn't even try Siri for long before giving out the award. Or it won by default? Siri on Apple TV is awfully frustrating sometimes. When you say "Rewind 30 seconds" while watching a show, and it replies with "I can't find anything called 'Rewind 30 seconds'", you have to wonder what the hell is going on. It actually understood the voice, and completely messed up the context/instruction.
I guess they're just handing out Emmys now if Apple can get one for Siri on tvOS.
Siri works about as well on tvOS as it does on iOS, in my experience. Across all of my Siri-enabled devices, none of the rooms in my home that have HomeKit devices in them can start with the same letter because Siri apparently thinks "Front Room" sounds like "Family Room" and vice-versa over 90% of the time.
About half the time I ask Siri something on tvOS, it says, "Sorry, I can't do that here."
Here's to hoping some of those Emmy-winning engineers make their way back to iOS Siri. I recently created a reminder and was treated to this non-sequitur:
Siri, you asked me the followup question, so you should know what the original context was!
Siri doesn't work in Europe. The remote control doesn't work 50% as the idiot who thought this was handy "designed" it such a symmetric thing, you never know/feel what side is what. Oh wait, that doesn't matter, as it has Siri! Siri doesn't work in Europe. Oh wait, the idiot that "designed" the remote is coming from Europe. Oh wait, he too received (many) awards for his designs. Like making a remote of glass. But it doesn't matter, as the Apple TV is just a hobby. Steve said so... must be true
Wednesday April 17, 2024 9:58 am PDT by Juli Clover
Game emulator apps have come and gone since Apple announced App Store support for them on April 5, but now popular game emulator Delta from developer Riley Testut is available for download. Testut is known as the developer behind GBA4iOS, an open-source emulator that was available for a brief time more than a decade ago. GBA4iOS led to Delta, an emulator that has been available outside of...
Tuesday April 16, 2024 11:33 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The first approved Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) emulator for the iPhone and iPad was made available on the App Store today following Apple's rule change. The emulator is called Bimmy, and it was developed by Tom Salvo. On the App Store, Bimmy is described as a tool for testing and playing public domain/"homebrew" games created for the NES, but the app allows you to load ROMs for any...
Tuesday April 16, 2024 6:54 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Last September, Apple's iPhone 15 Pro models debuted with a new customizable Action button, offering faster access to a handful of functions, as well as the ability to assign Shortcuts. Apple is poised to include the feature on all upcoming iPhone 16 models, so we asked iPhone 15 Pro users what their experience has been with the additional button so far. The Action button replaces the switch ...
Wednesday April 17, 2024 12:19 pm PDT by Juli Clover
A decade ago, developer Riley Testut released the GBA4iOS emulator for iOS, and since it was against the rules at the time, Apple put a stop to downloads. Emulators have been a violation of the App Store rules for years, but that changed on April 5 when Apple suddenly reversed course and said that it was allowing retro game emulators on the App Store. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel ...
iOS 18 is expected to be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history. Below, we recap rumored features and changes for the iPhone. iOS 18 is rumored to include new generative AI features for Siri and many apps, and Apple plans to add RCS support to the Messages app for an improved texting experience between iPhones and Android devices. The update is also expected to introduce a more...
Top Rated Comments
Siri works about as well on tvOS as it does on iOS, in my experience. Across all of my Siri-enabled devices, none of the rooms in my home that have HomeKit devices in them can start with the same letter because Siri apparently thinks "Front Room" sounds like "Family Room" and vice-versa over 90% of the time.
About half the time I ask Siri something on tvOS, it says, "Sorry, I can't do that here."
Not a great user experience, IMO.
Siri, you asked me the followup question, so you should know what the original context was!
The remote control doesn't work 50% as the idiot who thought this was handy "designed" it such a symmetric thing, you never know/feel what side is what.
Oh wait, that doesn't matter, as it has Siri!
Siri doesn't work in Europe.
Oh wait, the idiot that "designed" the remote is coming from Europe.
Oh wait, he too received (many) awards for his designs.
Like making a remote of glass.
But it doesn't matter, as the Apple TV is just a hobby.
Steve said so...
must be true