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Comment by Noaidi | Hacker News Reader

Guess I am not using Siri anymore…

By the way, have any of you ever tried to delete and disabled Siri’s iCloud backup? You can’t do it.

Why not? Apple's ChatGPT integration has been pretty explicitly anonymizing requests and doesn't require an account. Maybe I'm missing something.

In the article they clearly mentioned that Gemini model will be used for the Foundation Model running on device or their own Server. They are not sending Siri request to Google servers.

You guys use Siri?

Only when I wake up in the middle of the night to ask it what is the current time of the dystopia. That and the calculator.

My exact reaction every time I hear people discuss Siri. I don’t think I used it once in my life and it’s one of the first thing I turn off every time I have a new device. So interesting to see how different people use the same devices in completely different ways.

Siri is extremely useful. That is, if your use cases are limited to:

- setting a timer

- dictating a title to search on Apple TV

Creating calendar events and reminders too!

A feature set that has remained unchanged since Siri’s launch…

Makes sense then, considering timers I set them on my watch and I don’t watch tv.

You can use Siri to call custom Shortcuts which in turn can ask for more details if required. And now that Shortcuts can make use of the LLMs (Apple’s or ChatGPT), there are a lot more ways to make Siri smarter.

I used it when it launched to figure out it was useless and haven't gone back.

Only for opening/closing the garage door, setting timers, and sending texts. What else do people use the digital assistants for?

Hundreds of times a day for HomeKit, though rarely anything else. It’s _mostly_ fine, provided there are no HomePods around.

For CarPlay, yes. I don't need a virtual assistant to do things I can do but worse; I need reliable voice controls to send messages, start phone calls, change the map destination and such with as little friction as possible.

Siri needs faster and more flexible handling of Spotify, Google Maps and third-party messaging apps, not a slop generator.

Unless Apple is lying:

On iPhone, Settings → iCloud → Storage → Siri → Disable and Delete

Edit: Tried it. It works for me. Takes a minute though.

TRY IT!

I did. It works, as far as I can tell?

You’re able to disable Siri in iCloud? Not turn off Siri, disable Siri back up in iCloud. And when you go back to it after not turning it on, it’s still off?

Yes. But, I'm not surprised that you're having issues. In my experience managing a large enterprise, iCloud accounts seem to have all kinds of weird, account-specific issues.

I have a current case open with Apple with this issue. It does not work. And I don’t believe you. I’m sorry I just don’t believe you because Apple says there is a technical problem preventing this. That does not just affect me. Because I also tried it on three other phones of three other friends of mine and it does not work.

You're using Siri? lmao

That's the Internet Explorer of chatbots.

Jeez, I only use it for the time and for the calculator, and to ask it to call someone. I am shocked anyone thinks I used it for anything more than that.

Also, I have never turned on Apple "Intelligence".

That's where people get confused - it's not a chatbot or an LLM - it's a voice command interface. Adding something to the shopping list, setting a timer, turning up the heating in the back room, playing some music, skipping a track, sending a message - it works perfectly well for - and that's what I use it for virtually every day.

This work is to turn it it into something else, more like a chatbot, presumably

Siri is already transitioning from an intent-based NLU system to an LLM.

In iOS 18.1 (on iPhone 15+) Siri is part intent-based, part on-device "Apple Intelligence" small LLM, and in iOS 18.2 it also supports off-device ChatGPT.

This year Siri 2.0 is expected to ditch the legacy intent-based system and instead use just the small on-device Apple Intelligence LLM plus (opt-in) off-device Gemini (running in some private cloud).

You’ve used Siri before?! /j

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