Apple is considered the most innovative company when it comes to some specific products and services, the Cupertino company always prides itself on being one step ahead with accessibility features. While this can be true in many areas, Apple’s voice assistant in one category has now been beaten by Google’s competition. A video demonstrates the problem.
Accessibility can help in many cases to simplify the work with smartphones, tablets, or computers in general. This also includes voice recognition, which is standard for both Apple and Google and, for example, enables dictation functions in any app.
9to5Mac now refers to a video by James Cham, who published a short comparison with an iPhone and Pixel on Twitter. This illustrates the problems with Apple’s solution:
One of the reasons why Apple’s speech recognition is neglected in this case is probably the technology used. While Google’s detection takes place locally on the smartphone, Apple has long relied on network connections, which causes a delay. Only since iOS 13 has Apple allowed voice recognition for selected languages to run exclusively on the device.
Another comparison that Ben Harraway published in response to the video above shows that this detection is significantly more powerful. He forces local recognition by activating the flight mode of his iPhone, as can be seen at the beginning of the video:
In addition to the sheer speed, Apple’s detection must also be beaten in terms of accuracy. Apple, therefore, has some catching up to do in this area. It can still be hoped that iOS 14, for example, will bring some improvements in this regard. We expect the first presentation of the new operating system at WWDC, which starts on June 22nd.
In addition to the problems shown above with Apple’s speech recognition, which is an essential part of Siri, the voice assistant itself also has to regularly listen to criticism. Recently there was criticism from Nilay Patel of The Verge, who asked his smartwatch what the time is in London.
In response, Siri did not provide time for London in England, but for London, Canada. An answer that is not wrong per se, but is certainly not expected in most cases. John Gruber tried the same question and found even clearer problems with the digital assistant. While his iPhone also answered the question with this London – possibly due to the proximity to Canada – his HomePod recognized the desired city on the island and gave the time. So Siri not only provides an unexpected answer but is also inconsistent. Tomsguide has also reviewed the intelligence of both the assistants along with Alexa’s assistant in various settings, the magazine has ranked Google assistant and Alexa almost equally with the final 26 points, however, Apple’s Siri is lacking with 22 points.
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