Terror of the adtech industry iOS 14.5 has landed, and Siri can answer your calls ... though she/he can't hang up Point releases typically come and go without much fanfare. By their very nature, they're incremental, bringing modest performance and security updates, and not much else. The latest version of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 14.5, released yesterday, is different. Why? Three words: App Tracking Transparency (ATT). First …
The problem with getting a voice assistant to end a call if twofold,
One the assistance needs to be listening into the call to hear the trigger phrase.
The second and far bigger problem is what should be the end phrase.
I.e. if it is bye then anyone trying to order something could get cut off.
Or should it be something like a fart sound - which would be very inconvenient for some people I know....
Now there is a list for the commentards to add to.....
"One the assistance needs to be listening into the call to hear the trigger phrase. The second and far bigger problem is what should be the end phrase."
Neither of these are problems at all. The former is no different from the mere existence of voice assistants. If you don't have a problem with it listening to you at all times waiting for an activation phrase, why would you suddenly have a problem with it continuing to function during a phone call? Most people are perfectly happy to use their phone while sitting next to an Alexa speaker, and this is no different.
As for the second, far from being a bigger problem we've already demonstrated that it is not a problem in any way. It was a running joke in the early days of voice activated thingies about how they would handle things like TV shows trying to be realistic by incorporating voice commands used in-show, or what would happen if two people in the street happened to be trying to use commands at the same time. The solution turned out to be that it's just such a vanishingly rare problem that no solution is needed. It's trivial to have an activation phrase that just doesn't come up in normal conversation, and even without having any filtering or voice recognition phones just don't pick up commands from nearby people - the idea of walking down a busy street and saying "Hey Google, call Mum" in a loud voice doesn't actually result in anything happening.
In this specific case, all you need is to say something like "Siri, end call". No-one is going to accidentally end a call unless they're deliberately screwing around.
Unfortunately you are wrong on both counts.
Firstly when you make a phone call two parties are involved, you may not have a problem with your phone listening into you the rest of the time, but the other person might. Even if it is only listening into the microphone when the phone is on loudspeaker it could in theory be listening in on the other end.
On the second point there are numerous news stories highlighting the fact that the running joke was in fact accurate. There have been adverts triggering voice assistance up to and including triggering purchases to be made. Some solutions have been done to try to minimize it (such as user recognition and black lists) but if you do a search even Google's own adverts have sill trigger some devices in recent years.
As an Android user, this made me wonder about Apple.
I can have Google Assistant call using a voice command for as long as I can remember. I can tell it to end a call by saying end call. It is not a special accessibility function, it's available to all users.
Then again, Google doesn't offer a phone in purple.
At least your provider has a legally mandated requirement to offer such facilities for law enforcement, and it's very controlled (for a simple reason: they get to charge for it), where Google is as uncontrolled as any US company can get with enough money to buy the laws it wants.
Actually, iPhones work well with hearing aids equipped for connectivity, even too well.
My late mother caused no end of confusion when she suddenly started talking in the hospital - the nurses missed that she just picked up a call from a relative. That said, it took ages to get her to a point where she could adjust them herself, as always, the UI designers of that config app had refused to even consider the idea that someone with diminishing cognitive skills would want to use it.
I have seen UI things in old people's home whose designers should be made to mate with a cactus as punishment. Three layers of menu before they can switch on the TV? WTF?
Was (because I haven't tried since) how once summoned, the Google assistant needed a fucking keypress to go away again.
No big deal unless you are using your phone as a sat nav, someone says "OK google" and you lose your screen until an illegal keypress.
It also brought Mask FaceID unlock - which deactivates FaceID completely, if it sees a mask and you Apple Watch is in the vicinity.
After Jake Moore at eSet said his 8yo daughter could open the phone with a mask on, Davey Winder (Forbes) tested it as well and, with him upstairs, at the other end of the house, his wife could still open his iPhone, when wearing a mask. On at least one occasion, the vibration warning to inform the Watch wearer that the phone has been unlocked didn't go off / wasn't noticeable.
This is a boon for iPhone + Watch users having problems unlocking with masks on, but they should be aware that FaceID just recognizes a mask and gives up all attempts at identification and the phone just checks to see if the watch is within shouting distance (100M on a good day).
It's letting any masked face unlock because the real user has used the PIN several times wearing a mask and therefore 'trained' the recognition wrongly. Still surprising as I thought much had been made of iPhones needing infrared info about pulse from face skin, plus eye contact even through glasses, etc.
Good.
Targetted ads need to disappear, along with the privacy invasion that they impose.
As for the disabled, companies apparently need to give a lot more thought as to how their tech works. Not being able to end a call is ridiculous. How can any group of people take the call project and not deal with how to end the call ?
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