This is Technology Bytes, episode 42 for December 24th, 2023.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bytes on interesting technology.
My name is Joel.
Enjoy.
And here we go.
Today I want to talk about Siri.
Yes, the, well, I was going to say smart assistant from Apple, but smart might be not the right word to use in this case.
You know that I’m a fan of Apple and I’m a fan of their products and I use just, well, everything that they make, I think I use.
And for the most part, I really enjoy it.
And it does what I want it to do and it works well and it is often brings joy into my life in the form of a technology that works.
But there is part of it that just doesn’t.
And that part is named Siri.
There was a time when I would try to defend Siri as, you know, brand new product.
They’re trying to figure it out, but this has been years.
And I don’t know, Siri is just terrible.
And I really don’t have anything to compare it to because I don’t use any other smart assistants, mostly because I like Apple’s privacy.
And there’s always been the thought that it’s Apple’s privacy that keeps Siri from being any good.
But I don’t buy that anymore.
The power inside of the phone, inside of the Apple ecosystem is such that Siri should be able to do things that she just can’t do.
The latest that came up for me is in the realm of music because this is Christmas season and I like to listen to Christmas music.
And I try to get Siri to play Christmas music.
And she will if you ask simply what you want to listen to.
I want to listen to Christmas music.
But I actually have then gone onto my phone, done a search in Apple Music for a playlist that I really like and then talked to Siri and say the exact words of the playlist and am totally ignored.
You know, I want to listen to CMA Country Christmas.
That’s what the playlist is called.
And Siri plays, I don’t know, some random country music.
I don’t get it.
It just doesn’t make sense to me.
So what do I do when it comes to Siri?
Well, what I do is try to live in the sweet spot.
I know there are things that she can do.
She can turn on my lights.
She can lock my door.
She can answer simple requests, you know, timers.
There’s a number of things that she does.
Sending texts seems to work pretty well.
Making phone calls seems to work pretty well.
But I know the capabilities and I try to live there so that I don’t live frustrated.
But there are times when I try to extend that ability without really knowing if it’s going to work or not and it can be very frustrating.
People have said since iOS 17, I think, that Siri is better.
Eh, maybe it’s true.
Maybe she’s giving more answers instead of the you’ll have to look on your phone and see what I found.
I mean, it’s just not good.
And in my opinion, this is probably the biggest black eye for Apple in the current offerings of what they do.
You know, some might say it’s the five gigabytes of free data.
That’s just ridiculous.
And I agree with them.
But I also pay for data and I would have to pay for data anyway even if they gave me 20 gigabytes free.
That’s still not enough.
And family plan, yada, yada, yada.
And so for me, Siri is the biggest issue that Apple has today.
And I don’t know.
Are they ever going to fix it?
I’m tired of making predictions.
That is all I have for today.
If you have any comments or suggestions, you can send them to TechnologyBytes at MerrickFamily.com Probably you are as frustrated with that lady.
She keeps responding on all of my devices so I’m tired of saying her name.
But I want to thank you for listening to the TechnologyBytes microcast.
And I look forward to the next time we are together taking another bite of technology.
