How Siri Is Getting Its Groove Back
Siri was groundbreaking when it debuted, but rivals from Amazon and Google have since overshadowed it. Wired spoke with Alex Acero, the Apple executive responsible for Siri, and Greg “Joz” Joswiak, Apple’s VP of product marketing, who explained some of Siri’s past challenges and upcoming improvements, such as improved voice recognition and iOS 11’s more natural voices. It’s interesting to hear the executives say that Apple has always wanted Siri to be able to perform tasks, not merely answer demo-friendly trivia questions that are unsatisfying in the real world. Joswiak noted, “We didn’t engineer this thing to be Trivial Pursuit!” Now Apple has to deal with the fact that it’s hard to change users’ Siri habits — if Siri failed you in the past, you probably won’t try that command again even if Siri could now handle it.
I don't use Siri. I tried once - couple of questions to open particular files - but it didn't understand so I did't bother again. The impression i got is that it can only answer questions it already knows the answers to.
I would use Siri if I could rename it to somerhing more to my liking. And programme it to respond to my requirements by first tapping in a series of keystrokes. For example, to open Filemaker and in Files database perform search for all records 'London' in town field and 'Argyll' in address. Name all that say 'fifteen' and it would be useful.
Otherwise 'what't the weather like today?' can be answered by looking out of the window.
I find Siri very useful for making reminders, setting timers, changing my alarm, and (until he went to college) texting my son to come down to dinner. But everyone has to find the things that Siri can do and is better at than manual actions.
And no, I don't use Siri on the Mac at all — it does nothing faster than my existing automation there.