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by asd 3542 days ago
>>>But I suspect that people don’t ask those questions because, after trying a time or two and getting no answers or wrong answers, they just give up on Siri. <<<

Absolutely this. I mean, you try a few of this these "long tail" queries and you eventually say "Fuck it!" I attempt these "long tail" queries (which to me, that term sounds like some shitty play-it-down excuse from Apple) weekly just to see if Apple is finally getting their act together in regards to Siri usefulness. I am consistently disappointed and never surprised and delighted.

I try to screenshot "Siri fails". Here are the last few in my screenshot album:

-------------------

"Open last screenshot" → "You don't seem to have an app named 'last screenshot' We could see if the App Store has it [App Store]"

"Share this with my wife" (Photo was open in Photos.app) → "I'm sorry Joe, I'm afraid I can't do that"

"When is the last time I exercised" → "Interesting Question, Joe"

"What year was this song recorded" (In Music app with song playing) → "Interesting question, Joe"

-------------------

We're living in a world where we can do more and more without using the screen as an interface. It's happening. I'm worried that Siri is a low priority product for Apple right now and they will soon be scrambling to play catch up if they aren't already.

EDIT: I'm hoping that Apple's recent buddying up with IBM allows for some of Watson's intellect to seep into Siri. Who knows, maybe in a future keynote we'll hear Tim say, "Ladies and gentlemen, Watson is coming to your Mac and iPhone!"

2 comments

I keep trying to get Siri just to turn on the flashlight. I'm always disappointed when she says she can't.
FWIW none of those work with the all mighty google's personal assistant either on my nexus 5x.
Out of curiosity, is this the the actual "Google Assistant" you're referring to? Or simply Google Now?

I believe there is a difference, but that's purely speculation on my park. I'll be able to test it more in ~2 weeks when my Pixel XL arrives.

Ah good point - this might be google now. It's the voice search feature on the search bar that persists on all home screens.

Didn't realize they might be different products.

I believe they have added ML in the Assistant, along with some new features like context recognition. Granted, it's of course difficult to say how much is shared between Now and Assistant.
FYI you can already use the new Google Assistant in several devices http://www.xda-developers.com/xda-external-link/google-assis...
"Ok google turn on/off the flash light" works on my motorola nexus 6
That's nice for you but the whole point of my comment was that I tried OP's commands.