by netsharc on 1/24/25, 10:56 AM
It's not Siri, but I'm surprised they didn't immediately kill a feature which alerted people with misleading headlines like "Luigi Mangione shoots himself" or that Rafael Nadal has come out as gay. An using the BBC's icon next to them!
Steve Jobs would've stormed into that team's office and dropped a grenade...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/07/apple-upd...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cge93de21n0o
> The BBC first complained to the tech giant about its journalism being misrepresented in December but Apple did not respond until Monday [January 6], when it said it was working to clarify that summaries were AI-generated.
by anonzzzies on 1/24/25, 1:09 PM
Siri has never been good at anything. Apple fans (other than me) gushed over it for years; now no one I know uses it or mentions it anymore. I like apple hardware but xcode, siri, icloud, apple mail; all terrible stuff imho. Siri wins though; it's even hard these days (with llms and other natural language processing) to make something so bad.
by htrp on 1/24/25, 3:43 PM
>What hadn’t occurred to me until now is that not only is OpenAI getting no money from Apple out of this arrangement, but that the net brand equity they’re getting from it might be negative. These Super Bowl and high school basketball queries are handled perfectly by ChatGPT when using it directly — but Siri’s attribution makes it look like ChatGPT is to blame for these utterly and at times laughably wrong bungled answers. As it stands, Apple is getting a scapegoat more than a partner out of this deal.
apple intelligence has always been a way to look good doing AI while not taking responsibility
by blackeyeblitzar on 1/24/25, 4:12 PM
It’s not just Siri. With recent updates it has become obvious that iOS as a whole is getting worse. It’s not just the photos app in iOS 18 either - there are many annoyances all over the OS. As far as “intelligence” goes, I’ve also noticed that other ML powered features like typing and text prediction are worse on iOS today than in the past. Meanwhile support services like iCloud continue to have issues themselves - for example sync is completely broken on windows and has been this way for years.
I’m not sure what Apple is doing anymore. The hardware has been commoditized so if they aren’t competing on software, how are their outrageous margins defensible?
by denkmoon on 1/24/25, 11:12 AM
I’d settle for it not resuming my audiobook when I ask for music :’)
by ahmeneeroe-v2 on 1/24/25, 3:09 PM
One particularly frustrating category of errors is mistaking the content of my message/reminder/calendar appt as the actual requested action.
"Siri in two hours remind me to: [do X]" I'm sorry I can't do X
"Siri send message to wife: [message]" I'm sorry I can't do [message]
This error type seemed to increase with the advent of Apple Intelligence
by Havoc on 1/24/25, 12:09 PM
Really seems like apple missed this time with their usually "we're not first, but we're the best when we do show up strat" on AI.
by amazingamazing on 1/24/25, 1:56 PM
I'm curious if anyone who's ex-Apple could briefly (without breaking any rules) describe why Siri is so bad compared to competitors.
by retskrad on 1/24/25, 12:37 PM
Why do we still hold Apple as a company in high regard when they remain incredibly inert, bowing to investor pressure to add generative AI features they are ill-equipped to handle as an institution, while prioritizing stock buybacks and dividends over innovating new products or developing a car or actually making a VR headset the market wants?
Last year they released AirPods Max 2, a 4 year old headphone at the time, with the only change being new colors and USB-c and the same price tag. If that’s not the perfect picture of Apple under Tim Cook.
by rowanseymour on 1/24/25, 1:29 PM
I setup a couple of HomePods recently and smart switches despite warnings from friends that Siri wasn't as good as the other options.. and it's been frustrating. Maybe it's our accents but just basic stuff like asking for a timer often ends up in playing a song.
by etothet on 1/24/25, 1:39 PM
Can we please recognize that for all the people who call out Gruber for being an Apple shill (I don’t think he is) here he is being severely critical of Apple (which he does plenty often)?
by scarface_74 on 1/24/25, 3:15 PM
But but, but Gruber is supposed to be an Apple apologist according to HN. I am confused…