Siri

The lack of Calendar support for Siri on HomePod has been a glaring issue of Apple’s home speaker since its release earlier this year. Now new evidence suggests that will soon change when iOS 11.4 is released.

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I’ve written on a couple of occasions about how Apple’s approach to Siri differs from the intelligent assistants offered by Amazon and Google.

The tl;dr version is that Apple has gone all-in on privacy, while Google takes the ‘hoover up as much data as possible’ approach, and Amazon has opened up Alexa to, well, anyone who wants to make it do something.

But while Apple’s privacy focus explains some of Siri’s limited abilities, it doesn’t excuse them all. HomePod brought Siri’s limitations into sharp focus, and the upcoming introduction of Siri to two new products will further increase the pressure for a smarter Siri …

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Apple’s Siri team has published a new Machine Learning Journal entry that details some of the process behind making voice-activated ‘Hey Siri’ work with just our voice. Apple previously documented part of the process behind pulling off voice-activated Siri in general last fall, and the first Machine Learning Journal entry of this year focuses on the challenge of speaker recognition.

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According to a new report from The New York Times, Apple has hired Google’s chief of search and artificial intelligence, John Giannandrea. Tim Cook made the announcement in an email to employees, noting that Giannandrea will officially be the head of “machine learning and A.I. strategy.”

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Wikipedia’s Chief Revenue Officer, Lisa Gruwell, has said that companies which pull data from the service without donating could be considered guilty of exploitation.

She said that smart assistants relied heavily on information sourced by Wikipedia, but while Google has made substantial donations, Apple and Amazon haven’t …

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[Update: Apple says it will fix the bug in a future update.]

A privacy bug reported by Brazilian site Mac Magazine allows someone to access hidden message notifications on a locked iPhone by asking Siri to read them …

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The Information has published a lengthy report today covering the development of Siri. The article documents Siri’s tumultuous changes in leadership and management over the last few years, indicating that Siri 1.0’s infrastructure was very creaky, which held back the service.

One of the most interesting anecdotes is the claim that Apple’s HomePod team didn’t meet with the Siri group until 2015 (Amazon Echo first debuted in late 2014). The story says Apple had originally considered launching the speaker without Siri.

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My experience with HomePod has so far been a very positive one, with its responsiveness to Siri requests something that’s really impressed me.

A key HomePod feature is its use of noise-cancelling microphones so that it can hear Hey Siri requests no matter how loudly the music is playing, but I’ve also been really amazed by the sheer distance at which Siri can hear me – often from one end of our apartment to the other.

But there is a downside to this …

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If you’re an Apple Music subscriber who’s all in on the Apple ecosystem, then the HomePod is a compelling smart speaker. Not only does it sound excellent, but it has Siri built in, which can do things like control your music and control smart home accessories.

HomePod isn’t yet as “smart” as Google Home products with Google Assistant, or Amazon products with Alexa, but it has loads of potential, and already features many built in conveniences. Did you recently purchase a HomePod? In this hands-on video, we’ll walk through some of our top must-know tips for new HomePod users.

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Included in today’s release of iOS 11.2.5 for iPhone and iPad is a new feature that builds on something we discovered earlier this month. Siri can now play news streams specific to sports, business, and music news when asked.

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Update: The feature is also rolling out in Australia, with ABC, SBS, and Seven Network as sources.

Earlier this month, Apple started testing a new capability for Siri that would play daily podcasts when asked about the news. At first, the feature was limited to users running the iOS 11.2.5 beta in the United States, but Apple today has expanded it to non-beta users and users in the UK…

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Apple has taught Siri more about sport ahead of the Australian Open starting this weekend. iPhone, iPad , Apple Watch and Mac users can now ask questions to Siri like ‘Hey Siri, how is Roger Federer doing’ or ‘Hey Siri, who is ahead in the Pebble Beach tournament’.

You can also ask for player biographies and more information relating to the sporting events coming up and historical records. Details below on exactly what Siri knows about in golf and tennis …

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In what is certainly a feature created with the HomePod in mind, Apple has enhanced Siri in iOS 11.2.5 beta with the ability to instantly stream a news podcast when asked about the news. The feature defaults to a daily news recap podcast by The Washington Post and lets you switch to Fox News, NPR, or CNN shows upon request.

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In the wake of the HomePod delay, I’ve found myself tinkering more and more with Amazon Alexa-enabled smart speakers like the Sonos One and Echo Dot. The main appeal of HomePod for me is HomeKit control, managing Apple Reminders and Cultured Code Things tasks and entries, and controlling Apple Music and Apple Podcasts playback.

I’ve found that most HomeKit accessories also work with Amazon Alexa, so voice-enabled smart home control is relatively easy to do with Alexa. Adding new entries to lists in Reminders is something else I frequently do with Siri, and luckily it’s possible to make this work with Alexa too.

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A new patent unearthed today shows how Apple is working to make improvements Siri and its core capabilities. Apple originally filed for the patent in 2016, but it was just made public today

Essentially, this patent covers how Siri could detect when a user is whispering and subsequently “whisper” all of its replies…..

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Siri is steadily getting better with new features and improvements, but one place where the voice assistant could still learn a thing or two is how it pronounces city names. Siri tries its best to pronounce the names of cities based on their spelling, but this often leads to a comically bad mispronunciation that makes Siri sound like a complete out-of-towner.

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