[sequoia]

I have a lot of issues with dictation as well which I feel has gotten much worse as it gets "smarter." It used to take literal dictation & I could say "comma" "period" etc. to insert punctuation. Now it tries to guess when commas or full stops should be added and it's horrible. If I pause to take a breath it puts a comma or period, sometimes entirely changing the meaning of the sentence.

Recently I said "I ran into this too earlier on the project" and it wrote "I run into this tube earlier on the project." So now I'm running into a tube... because this makes more sense than "too"? And it can never write the names of immediately family members I text about every single day, and it has 5th grade vocabulary so if I said I demurred or that something was germane or any other word beyond the 500 most common words it butchers it.

What I want: 1. let me handle the punctuation manually 2. assume a broader vocabulary 3. let me specify how people's names are pronounced!! How are we this many years in and it still misinterprets my wife's name on a daily basis?

[itopaloglu83]

Here's a recent conversation I had with Siri.

Me: Hey Siri, set the living room lights to 100%.

Siri: 100% = 1

This has been working for 6-7 years without any issues, and suddenly Siri is giving me math lessons. What the hell is happening in this company?

[amluto]

Me: Hey Siri, turn on the [such and such] light

Siri: Shows the literal text “Hey Siri, turn on the [such and such] light” on the screen and does absolutely nothing. It’s an edit box. Pressing enter has no effect.

[dd8601fn]

Siri is about old enough to be getting a drivers license now, and I swear it's going through the same brain development woes.

[mft_]

Did you upgrade your iOS? I’m stubbornly sticking to v18 as long as I can and have noticed no such change. Cooking timers, alarms, and light settings are basically all I use Siri for.

[itopaloglu83]

I’m still using iOS 18 as well. This issue happens randomly and usually through Apple Watch.

Honestly, I don’t care how complex and advanced the Siri is, I want simple tasks to work 100%.

[trca]

Same thing has happened to me with Siri. It's absolutely garbage.

For years, I've said "Hey Siri, turn on Bright" because I have a "Bright" Home scene configured. About 2 months ago, the HomePod updated and now responds consistently with "Pause in the bedroom?"

Nothing is playing in the Bedroom. Nothing CAN play in the bedroom, there's just lights in the Bedroom. No speakers. What the heck is it even _trying_ to pause.

It's infuriating.

[itopaloglu83]

It made me remember how Siri used to turn on the lights when you say “Let there be lights”. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work anymore either. It was a cool gimmick that made us chuckle.

[cachvico]

Didn't they add name pronunciation guidance a few years ago?

https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/correct-siri-pronunciation-...

I'm curious though if that affects recognition as well as audio generation.

[dkga]

Same frustration here. It’s somewhat painful for me to type but using dictation on the iphone is so terrible I prefer the physical pain.

As for names, I an also baffled. Most people in my family have either a Brazilian Portuguese or German name, but my work life is in English, so guess what, no getting anyone’s name right!

[pradn]

It's extremely painful that there's are free, OSS dictation tools that can run on-device, that are so much better than Apple's dictation, and yet it's quite difficult to use them on the iPhone. I'm referring to Whispr. Microphone access is a pain for custom keyboards -- for good reason, but still.

[jama211]

I still use spoken punctuation and it works ok so long as you don’t pause. E.g. “ hey siri text my wife I’m not sure when I’ll be home comma but I’ll text you when I’m leaving” if I say that without pausing, it puts the comma in the right place

[anonymars]

I think the point is the opposite. Heaven forbid you might need to take a moment to think: now you get a comma or period

[jama211]

Perhaps but it was always like that so it hasn’t regressed

[citiguy]

I struggled with family member names too until I realized I can create shortcuts for them (usually just their initials). Now I just type the shortcut and it always works. Joy!