Android clobbers Siri in Japanese... and English Apple's attempts to get its natural-language assistant to speak Japanese haven't gone down well locally, getting itself trounced by the Android-based Syabette Concier. We're grateful to Kotaku for the translation, which demonstrates how Siri fails to provide directions to the hospital when told of that the user has a stomach …
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> "No one buys a phone 'cos it's marginally better at recognising voice commands – we're a very
> long way from when that matters."
>
> Which is why Apple don't promote Siri at all in the adverts for the iPhone 4S... oh... wait...
I must have missed the ads where Apple claim that Siri is better than alternatives at recognizing voice commands, then.
Or did you utterly fail to understand the point of the claim you quoted?
From what I've seen, Google Voice Search gets better results than Siri, and all it does is run a Google search.
Siri looks like something that should still be in beta. I don't understand why Apple released it in its current state. It's not like them at all to release an app that performs as inconsistantly as Siri, let alone make it the center of a marketting campaign.
"It is. See the Apple FAQs"
Not the adverts then, which I genuinely don't recall clearly referencing the fact that it's a beta, and effectively giving the impression that it's a complete, polished product.
OutOfTheBox voice control (as opposed to learned - which is pretty mature and works well enough with enough training) will remain being crap on the whole till either bandwidth and latency improve drastically on mobile networks, or until the handsets have SOCs that can do the heavy lifting required for natural linguistics by themselves.
FACT.
END OF.
Steven R
"No one buys a phone 'cos it's marginally better at recognising voice commands"
Except for this disgruntled UK iPhone user:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/02/asa_ruling_siri_uk/
Or this disatisfied US iPhone user:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/13/siri_lawsuit/
Lets be slightly fair to Apple development group; there was a great idea and concept that they haven't yet delivered on. They just forgot to inform their marketing group.
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"No one buys a phone 'cos it's marginally better at recognising voice commands"
From the Gizmodo comparison, I would say Android is substantially better, not only at recognizing what was said, but understanding and returning results quickly.
Considering how much noise Apple have made over Siri, i'm betting there are ALOT of iPhone 4s owners feeling a little cheated right now, when they discover voice commands are not the be-all-and-end-all, and that even if they were, that Android did a much better job of it (and got the results quicker without massive amounts of online data consumption).
The conclusions from the test are a bit off, do I really want to directions to an hospital for a simple "stomach ache"? Maybe recommending a pharmacy for some antacid would be a better idea.
Do I want the phone to assume that "wake me tomorrow" means at 10AM - or ask me what time I would like to wake up like Siri does?
OK so the Japanese assistant has a link to a cooking database, that's why it got the curry recipe. Same goes for maps.
Siri may lack such varied data sources as of yet, but I'm sure that's changing soon.
You might think that directions to a hospital might be a bit over the top for a simple "stomach ache" but I can understand why Siri thinks it appropriate.
You are an intelligent human being. You can tell the difference between a touch of indigestion and something potentially more serious. Siri cannot. A stomach ache could be the result of an acid attack due to over indulgence, appendicitus or god knows what. Given the propensity of Joe Public to believe whatever a computer tells them despite evidence to the contrary (see the idiots who drive into fields because their sat-nav told them to) you can see that anything that hints of a medical matter should be directed to the nearest health professional, if only to cut down on lawsuits.
"You are an intelligent human being. You can tell the difference between a touch of indigestion and something potentially more serious."
Intelligent human being may be a little much. They did buy an Apple product with a 50% margin after all.
Your point is valid though. Are people so lazy that they would really ask Siri such things?
"Siri I need to poo"
"Then go the bathroom you idiot"
Punters buy phones 'cos they're shiny and all their mates have better ones, so must upgrade.
And 'cos there's a free playstation if you signup for a 200 month contract.
Or
Marketing types and graphic designers buy iPhones because they are discerning customers who care deeply about design and presentation - and because all their mates have one.
Or
Geeky types buy Android because they like to 'roll their own' and because half their mates have iPhones and they want to prove Android is better
Or
You can use your ancient Nokia and save epic amounts of time
Well, I've only got an iphone because a friend didn't need his anymore, and my partner didn't want it (preferred a Samsung non-smart phone), so I was next in line for the freebie. Before that I got by with an occaisional text from my work-suppled Blackberry.
That said, now I have it I do use it for more than just basic phone functions but I'd live without them if it broke.
Have a look at this:
http://www.androidme.org/news/android-clobbers-siri-japanese-well-english.html
androidme.org seems to be an Android news site that lifts articles from other sources, then runs them through a doubleback translator, maybe to disguise the source.
An alternative explanation is that Bill Ray copied his article from androidme.org and did a very good job of rewriting it - which I'm sure he didn't :)
It works fine for me. If you speak clearly and distinctly, Siri has no trouble at all. Mumble like street trash, not so much so. I use Siri now and again, and I use verbal texting constantly. Its about 95% accurate, and only seems to fail me on the occasional bit of technical jargon.
I never have any problems with Siri, but I credit it to the fact that unlike many Americans, I grew up watching old British television. This made me learn to speak English "more or less" rather than mumble in American.
I'm actually grateful to Siri, its made me watch my diction.
As to trendy, I don't care about fashion. I buy what works for me. And a new Android phone the size of a paperback book is not what I wanted.
You credit your stellar non-mumbling skills to watching British television, but what do you credit your spectacular arrogance to? You sounds like my few friends that bought an Apple product, were disappointed that they paid 2 - 3 times as much as I did for the something worse, and attempt to justify their purchases. They say the same things like "I'm *grateful* I make poor financial decisions, because now I watch my diction."
...how is it the crack* Reg journalism team has missed the opportunity to mention what "Siri" transliterates to in Japanese?
http://www.technolog.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/awkward-apples-siri-translates-buttocks-japan-120296
* And maybe I do mean that. :-)
The claim is "sounds the same", not "looks the same". "si" transliterated -> "shi", just as say, a borrowed word like "samurai" develops an English "r" and modified vowels when native English speakers pronounce it, because it gets fitted to English phonology.
I think we have reached the point where this discussion is no longer useful. Moderators, I will try to shut up and spare you now.
My phone has voice recognition and if you talk out a text then 8 or 9 words out of 10 are correct. Problem is that it still leaves a lot of correcting to do. I imagine Siri is just as annoying because it's supposed to parse the sentence and then interpret it in some meaningful way and if it doesnt then its worse than useless.
Actually that's a terrible example. Apple makes a pretty big marketing push about its A4/A5 chips. There are probably a lot of people who can tell you that their iPhone has an A-whatever chip. How many random Android users are going to be able to tell you that their phone has an OMAP, or a Tegra, or a Hummingbird, or whatever? I would guess almost zero.
But I was more interested in the "lifestyle" comment--what lifestyle is Apple promoting exactly? Their commercials generally show attractive, well-dressed, multiethnic people doing things like jogging (talking to Siri), learning in school, and video chatting with distant relatives. If that's a lifestyle, then it's the same lifestyle that every other company tries to promote on TV. What would you expect to see in the advertising material, a bunch of fat white nerds eating chips in their basement and talking about processor names/specs?
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