[jmacd]

This is one of those announcements that actually just excites me as a consumer. We give our children HomePods as their first device when they turn 8 years old (Apple Watch at 10 years, laptop at 12) and in the 6 years I have been buying them, they have not improved one ounce. My kids would like to listen to podcasts, get information, etc. All stuff that a voice conversation with Chatgpt or Gemini can do today, but Siri isn't just useless-- it's actually quite frustrating!

[knallfrosch]

Siri still can't play an Apple Music album when there is a song of the same name.

Even "Play the album XY" leads to Siri only playing the single song. It's hilariously bad.

[billti]

Or the even more frustrating:

Me: "Hey Siri, play <well known hit song from a studio album that sold 100m copies"

Siri: "OK, here's <correct song but a live version nobody ever listens to, or some equally obscure remix>"

Being these things are at their core probability machines, ... How? Why?

[troad]

> Being these things are at their core probability machines, ... How? Why?

Is Siri a probability machine? I didn't think it was an LLM at all right now? I thought it was some horrendous tree of switch statements, hence the difficulty of improving it.

Apple search is comically bad, though. Type in some common feature or app, and it will yield the most obscure header file inside the build deps directory of some Xcode project you forgot existed.

[46493168]

It’s absolutely insane that you can’t say “Siri, play my audiobook” and it play the last audiobook you listened to. Like, come on.

[http-teapot]

Or when you are driving, someone sends a yes-no question where the answer is no.

Siri: Would you like to answer?

Me: Yes

Siri: ...

Me: No + more words

Siri: Ok (shuts off)

[CephalopodMD]

Not exactly the same, but kinda: my gen 1 Google Home just got Gemini and it finally delivers on the promise of like 10 years ago! Brought new life to the thing beyond playing music, setting timers, and occasionally asking really basic questions

[layer8]

It remains to be seen what the existing HomePods will support. There’s been a HomePod hardware update in the pipeline for quite some time, and it appears like they are waiting for the new Siri to be ready.

[aixpert]

it's not going to help them. For Siri to be really useful it wouldn't need deep system integration and an external model is not going to provide that. People don't believe me when I said it about Apple Intelligence with open AI

[alt227]

Thats what you get for buying into one ecosystem and sticking with it. All that stuff has been available on Alexa for a decade.