Is there any way to make Siri work better?

Question

Level 1

4 points

Is there any way to make Siri work better?

I am absoutley amazed at how bad Siri is working now. I articulate carefully when using the mic button to dictate emails, text messages, etc. Siri is making way more mistakes than in the past. Lately the Siri function outright skips spoken words that are clearly articulated with a plain english voice. Many of my friends consider me an "Apple fan boy" but they also can't believe when Siri messes up most of the sentences that I clearly speak. I've reinstalled iOS 6 and even got a new phone from Apple but the problem is still the same.

Is there anything I can do to make this, not so great, dictation function work better? I would much rather have the opportunity to train Siri so that it becomes a useful bsuness tool.

Will H.

Marketing Director

Metro Detroit, Michigan

iPod 5th Generation (Late 2006)

Posted on Aug 6, 2013 2:35 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Aug 6, 2013 2:50 PM in response to WizardWill

As you use Siri, you are training it. Make sure you're going back and clicking on the underlined words and correcting them. Avoid trying to dictate in extremely noisy environments. Make sure you have a good data connection.

Keeping in mind that Siri is still in beta, I find it works extremely well for me, most of the time. But, I use it a lot so, it's gotten to know my voice fairly well.

Reply

Answer 2

WizardWill Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 6, 2013 3:27 PM in response to IdrisSeabright

Thank you for your reply Meg.

I have done all that for years and this has to be the world record for beta length on such an important function. The whole idea is not to have to type in order to speed up the process of communication. Or to make driving safer. But the communication process is painstakingly slow by having to add spoken but missed words where they are not underlined. Or putting in complicated wrong words after a clear spoken attempt of a simple word. Trying to fix all of these mistakes in a car makes it very dangerous.

I know Apple has spent a ton of time on the look of iOS 7 in the upcoming release, which is great. But the way we comunicate with our iPhone should be a huge prioirty, and it looks like apple has passed it to the back buner while still calling it beta. My friends with Androids and Google are showing me up and I am mad about it!

Will

Reply

Answer 3

Aug 6, 2013 4:18 PM in response to WizardWill

WizardWill wrote:

I have done all that for years and this has to be the world record for beta length on such an important function.

I've forgotten how long Gmail was in beta but, as Siri has only been out for about two years, I know that Gmail beats it by a mile. 😉

I know Apple has spent a ton of time on the look of iOS 7 in the upcoming release, which is great. But the way we communicate with our iPhone should be a huge priority, and it looks like apple has passed it to the back burner while still calling it beta. My friends with Androids and Google are showing me up and I am mad about it!

And they've announced iOS 7 will include improvements to Siri.

For what it's worth, I also have a Samsung Galaxy S4 (S3 before that). I find that Siri and Apple's speech to text works as well or better in almost all circumstances. I can get speech to text to work pretty well on the Samsung but it never understands me on things like "Send a text" or Open <program>", things that Siri never fails me with. Combined with my BT headset, with only one touch of the button on the headset, I can listen to a new text and respond to it.

I'm willing to entertain the idea that some people have better luck with one than the other. I'm sure there are differences in the underlying natural language recognition algorithms each company uses. I've also met people who can't seem to make either one work. And I've not been able to figure out why.

Best of luck.

Reply