'Hey Siri' to Become Just 'Siri' (9to5mac.com) 92
"Apple is working on a big change to how its Siri voice assistant works," reports the blog 9 to 5 Mac:
While you currently have to say "Hey Siri" to activate the assistant hands-free, that may not be the case for much longer. Bloomberg reports today that Apple engineers are working to drop the "Hey" part of the phrase, so you'd only have to say "Siri" followed by a command to activate the assistant...
In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that this is "a technical challenge that requires a significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work." Apple has reportedly been working on this change for the last several months and hopes to roll it out either next year or in 2024 depending on the progress of development and testing....
Doing so would match what's offered by Amazon, where you simply have to say "Alexa" to trigger the assistant, not "Hey Alexa."
Although long-time Slashdot reader cstacy complains that already, "I can no longer discuss Amazon Alexa, because she hears just 'Alexa' and wakes up... That's not a feature, that's a bug! Not sure why Apple and Google would want to replicate that."
In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that this is "a technical challenge that requires a significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work." Apple has reportedly been working on this change for the last several months and hopes to roll it out either next year or in 2024 depending on the progress of development and testing....
Doing so would match what's offered by Amazon, where you simply have to say "Alexa" to trigger the assistant, not "Hey Alexa."
Although long-time Slashdot reader cstacy complains that already, "I can no longer discuss Amazon Alexa, because she hears just 'Alexa' and wakes up... That's not a feature, that's a bug! Not sure why Apple and Google would want to replicate that."
It's Obvious Why They Want to Do It (Score:5, Insightful)
Competitor has feature A, so therefore we need feature A. Do the customers like it? We don't know and we don't care! Competitor has feature A!
Coincidentally, to this day I still hate phones without an earphone jack and without a slide out keyboard.
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I liked having a physical keyboard, but I also found that any phone that I had with moving parts lasted much less longer. Invariably the slide, flip, or keys would stop working and I'd have to buy a new phone. None of my solid brick phones have ever had issues. They work flawlessly until the battery gives up or the software gets too out of date, whichever comes first.
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That's odd. I've never had one fail, and I still use a phone with a keyboard and have since the BlackBerry 7290. (I had to downgrade to the BlackBerry KeyOne as neither my Classic nor the KeyTwo works on AT&T now...)
My wife has a Pixel now, but used a KeyTwo until the day it stopped working on AT&T. She's had a BlackBerry since ~2007, Starting with a Curve. We've never had one die or develop problems.
The closest thing to a problem I've ever had was on my 8820, where I had to occasionally clean t
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Boiling a frog slowly. Next: "It's just always listening and transcribing and just knows you are talking to it based on context. How convenient!"
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Boiling a frog slowly. Next: "It's just always listening and transcribing and just knows you are talking to it based on context. How convenient!"
The Trigger-Phrase is decoded On-Device. Nothing goes to Apple until that is Recognized. And recently, newer Siri-Capable Devices even recognize certain classes of Utterances, such as Siri Shortcuts and Home App Scene Names, Locally as well.
Having said that, I personally don't particularly like this idea. It just has to create more "false positives" of the Trigger Phrase. Even though saying "Hey Siri" does feel slightly dorky after awhile.
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This is a dumb article. Apple is working on Siri II. Making the trigger ‘Siri’ is just a tiny part of the experience change.
The broader goal is to make Siri conversational and a knowledge agent ( like GPT-4 ).
Re: It's Obvious Why They Want to Do It (Score:2)
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So you were apparently not there. I remember going into a store to buy a keyboarded smart phone to replace my previous keyboarded smart phone. This wasn't too long after keyboardless phones had been introduced. The options with a keyboard were few. The manufacturers just stopped making them because ponies.
Does the competition fairy add and delete things at random across all manufacturers?
Go find a 3D TV on the market today. They were the next big thing.
They disappeared because they sucked. Face it. If customers liked them, phones would still have physical keyboards. 5% of car sales in the US are still manual transmission. If there's a significant market, someone will serve it.
No, they certainly didn't suck. I don't need a thin phone, I need one that fits well in my pocket. My Z Flip does that well. Multiple phone
There are reasons for "Hey Siri" (Score:2)
I wouldn't want any solution that eats battery power just to listen whether I say Siri. And I wouldn't want anything where my phone has to actively listen to everything I'm saying.
Re:There are reasons for "Hey Siri" (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess it works still the same, just that the magic word(s) change. The problem of course is that the shorter the phrase, the higher the false positive recognitions.
Hey seriously... (Score:2)
You can't be hey cereal.
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consider.
any name the user prefers.
not what somebody else thinks is allowable
Re: There are reasons for "Hey Siri" (Score:2)
Re: There are reasons for "Hey Siri" (Score:1)
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Siriously? (Score:3)
Are they Siri-ous?
You, "Seriously. Call your mother."
Siri, "Calling your mother."
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"Surely, you can't be siri-ous."
"I am siri-ous, and don't call me Shirley."
Based on Airplanes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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That actually works! Saying "Hey Seriously" activated Siri and it responded with "I couldn't get that, could you try again?" The next time Siri showed me webpages that contained "Hey seriously." And we're supposed to trust big-Tech's AI to drive our cars and not make mistakes?
Pssst! (Score:3)
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"I can no longer discuss Amazon Alexa"
You're not supposed to discuss about Her Who Shall Not Be Named.
I actually do refer to Alexa using that phrase!
The other trick was to refer to Alexa as "Siri", because I didn't have an Apple device yet. But these days I'm surrounded by them all.
It's annoying that I have to remember "OK Google" versus "HEY Siri"; they should all be the same. And you should be able to change it to other wake words. "Prekazywich Alexa".
Of course, tney will never let you entirely rename the device or use arbitrary wake words. They say it is technical, but I think it's because they know wha
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When my family talks about Alexa within range of Alexa, we spell it out, A-L-E-X-A to avoid the false trigger.
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And presumably you avoid talking about compiler development.
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When my family talks about Alexa within range of Alexa, we spell it out, A-L-E-X-A to avoid the false trigger.
Perhaps you hadn't heard that she learned to read lips from HAL-9000.
Re: Pssst! (Score:1)
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You must not know that you can change the word Alexa uses to wake it up.
I did this a long time ago so I don't have any problems with Alexa.
Maybe it is time for a value proposition (Score:1)
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What makes Siri or Alexa or Google any different?
I can think of simple words that rhyme with "Siri", I'm struggling to think of any words that rhyme with "Alexa" or "Google".
("Frugal", "Bugle"? Not words I'd use very often...)
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It's all a balancing act between many syllables, ie less chances to accidentally string together rhymes, and less syllables for the purposes of brand recognition.
"Alexa" is quite genius. Four syllables, yet a short five letter name to remember.
"OK Google" is also four syllables so just as good on the rhyme front, yet is two words, one of which is on-brand but slightly more clunky to say, and the "OK" part feels very tacked on and forced.
"Hey Siri" is harder already, three syllables and the last two are ver
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"Alexa" is quite genius. Four syllables
Ummm...
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The name is "Raymond Luxury Yacht", but it's pronounced "Throatwarbler Mangrove".
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Alekasa would be 4.
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suddenly becomes extremely bad when you drop "hey", being left with only two syllables that are very close together and containing the dreaded "R" that isn't globally common.
A sirry decision?
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What makes Siri or Alexa or Google any different?
I can think of simple words that rhyme with "Siri", I'm struggling to think of any words that rhyme with "Alexa" or "Google".
("Frugal", "Bugle"? Not words I'd use very often...)
I alike's-ah your poodle, may I pet it? Hey, I'm ah just bein' friendly! Hey, seriously ?!?
You don't believe me? OK Google that.
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I can think of simple words that rhyme with "Siri", I'm struggling to think of any words that rhyme with "Alexa"
How about "Alexa"? People are still named that, you know.
Re: Maybe it is time for a value proposition (Score:2)
No, it's a feature (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's a feature. It reminds you that you put a device whose purpose is to spy on you into your home.
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No, it's a feature. It reminds you that you put a device whose purpose is to spy on you into your home.
In my home? Hell, I carry at least one of them on my person at all times! Just like you.
"Hey Spywhore....play Every Breath You Take."
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In my home? Hell, I carry at least one of them on my person at all times! Just like you.
But I don't, in fact. Also, for what little it's worth, I've disabled hotword detection, not that you can trust the baseband processor even when the phone is "off". But it does fit nicely into any number of metallic containers.
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Well, I can argue that point. Yes, I have an Android phone. But the only way Google could get me to enable Alexa on it would be to hold a gun to my head.
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You can also allegedly stop Google from listening in on your phone (yeah yeah, I know) by taking microphone permission away from the Google app. This breaks voice recognition across all Google apps, including maps and search, though I don't of course know whether that's because it's working or to convince you that it's working.
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In my home? Hell, I carry at least one of them on my person at all times! Just like you.
I have an Android phone with LineageOS installed on it; but Play Store, Google apps, and even a Google account are conspicuous by their absence.
Yes, it's possible that Google can listen to me at any time, and yes, it's possible that my mobile data and/or WiFi are being turned on without my knowledge and permission. But these things seem rather unlikely under the circumstances.
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People just can't let go of the idea that Amazon Echo Dots and other Alexa-enabled devices are there so they can spy on you in your home.
I get the fear, but anyone remotely technical should be able to tell this isn't the case. For one thing, if it was openly listening to your conversations and transmitting them to Amazon to listen to them, you'd see that traffic going over your router and broadband connection. It's just not there.
You can create scenarios where other users purposely configure things so they
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No, it's a feature. It reminds you that you put a device whose purpose is to spy on you into your home.
If these things were honestly named, they'd be called "listening devices" instead of "smart speakers." I wonder if people would still want to buy them.
I alredy have issues... (Score:3)
We've got a couple home pods in the house and when we're watching something on TV, Siri will randomly perk up and say "I didn't quite get that" - it seems that she already interprets a bit too freely whether she herd "hey siri" I can only imagine this will get worse
What I'd LOVE would be the ability to make our own custom activation phrase - We actually refer to her as "Gertrude" in our house if we are talking about her but don't want her to go off ... like
"yeah the other day i was asking Gertrude to open garage door but she said it wasn't responding - turned out it was the battery in the sensor that says if the door is closed or open"
we do that so she doesn't "helpfully" pipe up thinking we were talking to her...
but if we could use "hey Gertrude" it's highly unlikely we'd have collisions with unintended activation unless someone on TV said "hey, yer rude" or something.. :)
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I wouldn't use either of them while they are still doing voice recognition in the cloud. Google does it on-device.
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Just wait until you watch (or play) The Witcher. I don't think Apple can tell the difference between Ciri and Siri.
What I'd LOVE would be the ability to make our own custom activation phrase
They should have a competition to see what people want. I'm sure Spyee McSpyface would get top votes.
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We actually refer to her as "Gertrude" in our house if we are talking about her but don't want her to go off ... we do that so she doesn't "helpfully" pipe up thinking we were talking to her...
I find it fascinating that we are so willing to both anthropomorphize, and change our behaviour in the name of, technologies whose nominal purpose is to serve us. An alien race could be forgiven for thinking that we humans are slaves to our own creations. Hell, they might even be right.
I'd also be interested to know if the high-level rulers of Amazon, Google, and Apple use their own voice assistants. If they do, I bet the routing and handling of their network traffic is VERY different from that of us peons.
Now what do I call her? (Score:2)
I already have to call Alexa the girlfriend to speak about her w/o her trying to respond, i.e. when I tell my wife
Girlfriend said it was supposed to rain on Friday...
Now I'll have to figure out another name for Siri to do the same kind of thing...
Suggestions?
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Simple. Switch to Google.
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I already have to call Alexa the girlfriend to speak about her w/o her trying to respond, i.e. when I tell my wife
"Girlfriend said it was supposed to rain on Friday..."
Now I'll have to figure out another name for Siri to do the same kind of thing...
Suggestions?
How about "Snitch"? Then you'll at least have a realistic name for one of the spies you've brought into your lives and your home.
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"NSA". As in, "Hey, NSA, did you see where I left my keys?"
A guess (Score:2)
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Tell me you have no idea how EU regulations are made without telling me you have no idea how EU regulations are made.
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Tell me you have no idea how EU regulations are made without telling me you have no idea how EU regulations are made.
I honestly have no idea about that.
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Tell me you have no idea how EU regulations are made without telling me you have no idea how EU regulations are made.
Tell me you have no sense of humor wiothout telling me you have no sense of humor.
But just to describe wht I wrote to those who do not. Imagine that you have a company. It's zipping along fat dumb and happy, functioning perfectly, and your customers are very happy with it.
Then some people say - No! you should not do it like that. You must obey our dictates of things that do not even matter, or your products will be illegal in our countries!? We have spoken!. Obey!" So in order to take the knee to the
Still holding out for 'Yo! Fuckface!' (Score:3)
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I'd activate that.
Could be insidious? (Score:2)
Well, there's just one thing to say to that (Score:3)
Seriously?
push to talk (Score:1)
How about a not so huge technical hurdle and just have a push to talk button instead of big brother constantly listening.
IIRC i had an LG phone many years ago that had this, and i thought it was better.
FingerOnTheApp trolls on Twitch... (Score:2)
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Whoops (Score:2)
Siri us ly?!?
Hey siri is garbage (Score:3)
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Odds of siri turning on when I say Hey Siri ... maybe 1/3. Number of times it randomly turns on for no reason I can figure out for every time it's supposed to, maybe 7. Multiple of my companies products have the word series in them. I don't know the last time we had a meeting without siri chirping in at least a few times. One time I think we had a dozen apple devices start listening and then started talking at random times, sometimes to each other. It was a comedic mess.
Liar.
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Yea I'm lying about e-series, a-series, and s-series, bringing up Siri all the time. Siri chiming on calls happens so much when we're waiting for people to join a call we joke if Siri will be joining today. Siri chimed in multiple times this morning during an e-series documentation review. It doesn't happen to me, I turned it off. I got tired of apologizing for Siri speaking up too much.
I have truly only had Siri false-trigger once, from something on TV.
In fact, I almost always have to use the Trigger Phrase twice to get my phone to wake up. It's quite good at sorting-out commands with moderately-loud dialog on TV at the same time, too.
You don't happen to have a coworker named "Cindy" or something, do you? ;-)
Sounds too much like "Surrey" (Score:3)
Escaping and/or quoting (Score:1)
They should make it ignore the keyword when it is preceded by the word "backslash", or make a scare-quote gesture with your fingers when pronouncing it.
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Siri zaps you for use of octal in 2022. The proper syntax is "backslash U 0053 backslash U 0069 backslash U 0072 backslash U 0069", and yes, that first letter is capital.
poor Tom Cruise (Score:1)
Are they just trying to make sure Tom Cruise can never use an Apple device?
One more time . . . (Score:2)
We're going to have to qualify what counts as "news" again, aren't we?
'Hey Siri' to Become Just 'Siri' (Score:2)
That will be a problem (Score:2)
Siri already wake of the blue because I pronouce a word like Siri, like "Chérie" that french for "my dear" or "honey". and I thinking of lot of other words in others languages that will trigger this bad behavior.
any way to shut it totally off? (Score:2)
The phone (Samsung) I got when T-Mobile finally shut down the old Sprint towers has a voice assistant. It is set to "off", but we all know that is not a guaranteed behavior. I have no Google, Samsung, Amazon, ... account on the phone, so it is possible that the phone number tracking is providing minimal data to them, but I do not have any expectation that the mic is still not on, listening and forwarding somewhere/somehow. I imagine that the TLAs and LEOs wouldn't be happy if I bought Stingray and used i
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The phone (Samsung) I got when T-Mobile finally shut down the old Sprint towers has a voice assistant. It is set to "off", but we all know that is not a guaranteed behavior. I have no Google, Samsung, Amazon, ... account on the phone, so it is possible that the phone number tracking is providing minimal data to them, but I do not have any expectation that the mic is still not on, listening and forwarding somewhere/somehow. I imagine that the TLAs and LEOs wouldn't be happy if I bought Stingray and used it to figure out exactly what my phone is doing.
My Applephile friends tell me that it is not possible to run one of their phones without a working Apple ID. Is there any known way to truly disable Siri?
Depends on your Paranoia level. I suspect for you, the answer would always be "Ok; but...".
But Siri is easily Disabled.
To temporarily prevent an iPhone from listening ON DEVICE for the Trigger Phrase, simply put your phone Face Down on a surface. That behavior can be suppressed with a Setting; but the Default is the above behavior.
To turn off the ON DEVICE listening for the Trigger Phrase, Switch OFF the "Listen for Hey Siri" Setting in the Settings App.
To Prevent the ON DEVICE listening for the Trigger Phr
Gosh, these product managers at it again... (Score:1)
When these product managers fail improve the product they change colour or button shapes and whatnot. In this case however, our PM is actually being creative. Well done sir.
And we will need... (Score:1)