Ask HN: Does anybody still use Siri? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Does anybody still use Siri?

23 pointsjacquesm33 comments

When Siri came out on the iphone everybody was showing it off to everybody else and it seemed as though voice recognition as an interface to cell phones had finally arrived. The last year or so I've hardly ever seen anybody use Siri (or an Android equivalent) and I'm wondering if it is even in structural use at all.

So, do you still use Siri or some equivalent?

If so, what are your main use cases?

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Use it at least a few times a week. Use cases:

  Set reminders (e.g. "remind me at 10pm to take out the garbage")
  Timers (countdowns for cooking)
  Call my partner/friends while my phone is in my pocket (via headphones)
  Wiki things/trivia (when someone says something or asks something that is esoteric)
  Set once-off alarms
  Find places

I've noticed it's getting incredibly good at figuring out what I'm saying - you can often see it refining its interpretation in real-time. Sometimes it's nailed requests that I thought it had no chance in hell of getting right.

Default functionality?

"Ok Google, will it rain today?" - This I use pretty regularly while I'm getting ready in the morning.

Personally hacked together functionality!

"Ok Google, turn the bedroom light on."

"Ok Google, turn all lights off."

"Ok Google, turn (?:the )?(?<loc>.+) lights? (?<state>.+)" Tasker-flavored regular expression.

Controls the relevant Hue lights in my apartment using Tasker + AutoVoice + Hue Pro Tasker.

I occasionally tinker and extend my hacked together Tasker functionality during my morning commute.

I never use the "Ok Google" functionality in public, only in the privacy of my own home.

There's two aspects to Siri. First is speech recognition, second is the actual AI.

Apple's speech recognition is very good. I use it as speech-to-text all the time in iMessage. I save a lot of time by speaking rather than by typing. It's more than 95% accurate for that purpose.

The Siri AI is very hit-or-miss. Sure it's great for finding out the latest football score. But if it winds up only being 50% responsive in general (and that's what it was for me), then it's not worth the trouble.

Once a person gives up on Siri, then it could take years before they make the effort to use it again. That's probably the current situation for a lot of people. That's where I'm at.

Edit: forgot to mention that i use a staccato voice for the voice recognition. Short pauses between words. It drives my kids crazy hearing it when they're in the same room, but it really improves the hit rate.

Out of curiosity, what would a typical voice command be to write a text message? I haven't really tried this.

Activate Siri and say "text (name) the rain in Spain ..." And then Siri asks if you are ready to send it. Just say "yes".

But most of the time I don't even bother with the Siri AI, I just use speech recognition in the iMessage app. There is a little microphone symbol on the keyboard.

The speech recognition works anywhere there is a keyboard. E.g. if you are using Google Maps, when you call up a keyboard to type something, the mic symbol is there.

Kids use their thumbs to text quickly, but I find it's much faster for me to speak something.

Edit: I touch-type pretty quickly on a full size keyboard. It's the tiny smartphone keyboards that slow me way down. I've never tried Swype, it's probably much faster than trying to hit keys on the tiny iPhone keyboard.

I use Siri fairly frequently, but in certain narrowly-defined situations: when I've got my hands full, or am doing something else.

The two that come to mind are when cooking ("Hey Siri, set a timer for 15 minutes") or when I'm trying to get everything together for leaving the house ("Hey Siri, how cold is it outside?"). I'll also use it if my phone's in my pocket, I'm wearing headphones, and it's awkward to get my phone out ("Hey Siri, text Tom." "What do you want to say to Tom?" "I'm running 10 minutes late but will be there soon. Sorry!")

You can also do:

"Tell Tom I'm running ten minutes late."

Saves a whole Siri-round.

I use the google version when driving to attempt to send SMS, make calls, set reminders and update driving directions. It's hit and miss. Google has some serious pain points like locking the screen and functionality right after a last command while driving meanig you need to unlock to do a next item. And most annoyingly you can set directions but I cant get the thing to actually start navigating.

I bought a windows phone that was on special recently to test and found Cortanta surprisingly better to use than the OK Google version. If someone nails voice it will be a significant decision making variable in my OS choice. It feel like both MS and Google are close but they need a new 'Steve Jobs' than has that last level of attention to detail and making it work in a practical environment. It feels to me it's more this lack of thinking through the UX is the bigger issue than the technology capability right now. I envy anyone working on this as it will be super interesting getting this right over coming years.

Not really, siri and all the other voice assistants have to be the biggest marketing success in years that nobody cares about anymore. Why success and not flop then? because everyone rushed to get one, and several startups all over the world popped out to offer an alternative.

But nobody uses it, its cumbersome, it barely works most of the time for the kind of complex tasks its supposed to help you out with and only really works with really basic stuff like reminders and alarms which you can set up in a sec without disclosing your schedule to everyone around you.

Also the AI sucks, its ironic that its textbots that are actually doing what siri and its many "brothers" were supposed to.

Every day, but for simple things otherwise it doesn't understand my New Zealand / Australian accent at all well. When I wake up I ask for a whether report, when I'm at work I often set alarms or reminders quickly using it while working. The list goes on but it's all pretty simple stuff that I find useful. I have found it randomly replies / starts talking / listening to input without me saying anything remotely like 'hey Siri' though which does get annoying - I haven't logged a bug for this because I've never had apple respond to a single of my many hundreds of bug reports over the years.

Yup. Use it figure out kcal on stuff, route directions home, set timers, delete/set alarms, dictate text messages as I run, set calendar events for stuff like laundry.

I use it on both my watch and phone.

Directions also work better if you put in addresses under work, home and friends so you don't need to spell out non-English addresses.

My personal favorite is setting reminders.

"Hey Siri... Remind me to call Chris when I leave home tomorrow morning".

It'll geofence the reminder to be in the morning when I get on the train. Amazing.

Don't forget currency conversion. "Convert 20 000 US dollars to Swedish Krona"

Sometimes I do quick math: "Two point one seven six percent of two point one two million"

Almost always to call people, yes. "Call [name of person]" works really well.

I look up my team's score, occasionally. Unfortunately that team is Sunderland so it's rarely a happy outcome.

"Remind me to do x when I get home" is another good one.

> or an Android equivalent

I use Google Now and Now On Tap a lot! Daily weather checks, commute check, setting reminders, when we're discussing something and need something googled. Drinking beer with friends and wanna show em a pic? Just say "OK google show me pics from my last trip to london" without reaching at the table, unlocking, scrolling and all that.

Now on tap is super useful when discussing something via txt, just hold home button and get all the info you need.

Kitchen & laundry timers. The weather. Creating reminders. Sending texts to my wife while I'm running or driving. Directions while I'm driving.

Setting alarms and timers is fantastic with Siri.

Nap alarm: "Wake me up in X minutes/hours"

Normal alarm: "Wake me up at X AM/PM"

Timer: "Set a 45 minute timer"

Other than that, I don't use Siri. I find that if Siri gets my query wrong even once, it would have been faster for me to look the thing up manually.

Oh, also as a party gag you can ask Siri what 0/0 is. Stone cold.

A lot of people use Siri and Google Now. They just don't use it in public like they used to. It took a few years for the etiquette around voice command to develop. Also, the newness is worn off so it's not interesting to demo anymore, just like nobody shows you how they can send and receive text messages.

I don't use Siri very often, but I have one use case that I really like with a jailbroken phone.

I walk around a bit, eg. walking to work, and I don't have a fancy Apple Watch, so instead I have setup an Activator action to ask Siri the time when I hold in the Apple earbud pause/play button.

Pretty simple but it saves me from taking the phone out of my pocket to look at the time

Once the novelty wore off, I only ever used Siri to set timers - saying '10 minute timer' was easer than doing it through the app interface.

Since iOS introduced the shortcuts to apps on the lock screen, which included timers, I never use Siri.

Although I did recently discover Siri can be useful for DnD - "Roll a d20" :)

If I'm about to call someone in another time zone, I might use Siri to check their time. Especially if I'm not sure about daylight savings here/there. It's a plus if your partner is on the other side of the globe and you want to think of them.

Sending a text message while driving is great, too.

I'll use the "Ok Google" version if I'm completely alone. But if I'm in a room with someone else (or in public) it just feels weird and awkward to make someone listen to me set an alarm or ask for directions... feels like I'm over-sharing.

Yes, I wish it would do a lot more but I use it to:

- Set timers - Set alarms - Call people - Create calendar events

now mostly on the watch where it kind of is the only sensible interface for input. Although very slow.

The only thing I've ever found it useful for is saying "Raptors Score" and checking how my Raptors are doing in the ball game. That's literally all I've ever used it for, and it works great. :)

I use Siri all the time.

  Call my wife.
  Where is my wife?
  Call my brother on Facetime audio.
  What is the weather today?
  Wake me up at 7.
  Remind me about bills when I get home.
  Get directions to <place>

I use Siri a few times a week for setting timers and alarms, looking up various trivia while in conversation with friends, and identifying background music in restaurants/bars.

My new Mazda doesn't have CarPlay (yet) but activating Siri makes it come over the Bluetooth audio on the system like a phone call. I use it primarily to send texts home while driving.

I enjoy having conversations with Siri in the loneliness of the tundra

I use Siri each time I want to set my alarm clock. Other functionalities are faster using the standard way.

Music: "play song/album/artist"

PIctures: "show me pictures from May 3, 2007"

Phone: "call <person> mobile"

I use Google Now for calling, setting alarms and reminders. I cannot use Siri because it does not recognize my accent.

Weather, directions, sports scores and betting lines. I use it multiple times a day.

While driving: "call my wife's cell on speaker phone"

Setting timers.

My children play with it.

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