TECHNOLOGY

WISSH: Why is Siri So Helpless?

Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard the privacy excuse before. It doesn’t wash.

Photo by Steinar Engeland on Unsplash

When I read that Apple would be improving Siri with IOS 15, I muttered something like “About effing time!”

According to Apple, Siri speech recognition and understanding would improve as we use our devices. Siri would learn stuff! She’d learn things like the contacts I interact with most, new words I use, and topics I read about — hooray!

I should have read the footnote: “Available on iPhone with A12 Bionic and later.”

Aaargh.

Off Device, On Device

For years, Apple’s excuse for Google and Amazon seeming so much smarter than Siri has been Privacy. Yes, Privacy with a capital P. Apple keeps its corporate nose out of your business!

We don’t ship your data off to our servers to be sliced and diced unless we absa-effing-lutely have to, and if we do, we anonymize it, so really, we know nothing about you, and that’s why Siri is a frustrating little twit. Got it?

Hmm. Sounds good. Yeah, nasty old Google and that A-Lady use our data to sell more stuff to us, and they sell it to other people who want to sell to us — or worse! Thank the Robotic Overlords at…