Siri Doesn't Like Your Accent - easy to use - as long as you're not from England. Or Scotland. Or Tennessee. Or Mexico -
Siri makes the new Apple iPhone 4S incredibly easy to use … as long as you're not from England. Or Scotland. Or Tennessee. Or Mexico.
When the new smartphone launched in October, numerous reports indicated that Siri, its built-in voice-recognition app -- one of the biggest reasons for buying the newest Apple gadget -- struggled with accents and regional dialects. And despite two months of additional development and updates, Apple has yet to resolve the iPhone's issues with accented Americans, users told FoxNews.com.
"It just didn't understand," Joanna Randell, a content manager for a branding firm and a native of Nottingham, England, told FoxNews.com.
Siri comes with support for five languages: three dialects of English (U.S., United Kingdom, and Australia), French and German. But switching to a different language dramatically limits Siri's functionality, Randell said.
"If you want to use it to search for a place or a location on a map, you have to use the American version -- you can't use the British version," Randell explained. Try to find a post office or drug store with British English enabled, and Siri will demurely decline.
"Sorry, I can only look for businesses in the United States and when you're using U.S. English," Siri apologetically explains.
And Siri still doesn't get Randell's accent. "I tried it with the American one and I had to switch, I wasn't getting anywhere," she said.
That's bad news, and not only for Swedes in San Francisco and Aussies in Atlanta. It's also bad for numerous Americans with regional dialects, because, apparently, U.S. English doesn't include Southerners.
"Siri's most common reply to me is that 'it didn't quite get that,'" Gizmodo tech editor Mat Honan wrote recently. "Is this due to my (very slight!) Southern accent?"
“I grew up in Alabama, and lived in Georgia for some time too,” Honan told FoxNews.com, “but it's not like I'm Gomer Pyle.”
"If I wanted a half-baked voice-control system, I could snag an Android phone for $49 at T-Mobile," he groused.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/20/apples-siri-still-hates-british-and-southerners/?test=faces?test=faces
Siri makes the new Apple iPhone 4S incredibly easy to use … as long as you're not from England. Or Scotland. Or Tennessee. Or Mexico.
When the new smartphone launched in October, numerous reports indicated that Siri, its built-in voice-recognition app -- one of the biggest reasons for buying the newest Apple gadget -- struggled with accents and regional dialects. And despite two months of additional development and updates, Apple has yet to resolve the iPhone's issues with accented Americans, users told FoxNews.com.
"It just didn't understand," Joanna Randell, a content manager for a branding firm and a native of Nottingham, England, told FoxNews.com.
Siri comes with support for five languages: three dialects of English (U.S., United Kingdom, and Australia), French and German. But switching to a different language dramatically limits Siri's functionality, Randell said.
"If you want to use it to search for a place or a location on a map, you have to use the American version -- you can't use the British version," Randell explained. Try to find a post office or drug store with British English enabled, and Siri will demurely decline.
"Sorry, I can only look for businesses in the United States and when you're using U.S. English," Siri apologetically explains.
And Siri still doesn't get Randell's accent. "I tried it with the American one and I had to switch, I wasn't getting anywhere," she said.
That's bad news, and not only for Swedes in San Francisco and Aussies in Atlanta. It's also bad for numerous Americans with regional dialects, because, apparently, U.S. English doesn't include Southerners.
"Siri's most common reply to me is that 'it didn't quite get that,'" Gizmodo tech editor Mat Honan wrote recently. "Is this due to my (very slight!) Southern accent?"
“I grew up in Alabama, and lived in Georgia for some time too,” Honan told FoxNews.com, “but it's not like I'm Gomer Pyle.”
"If I wanted a half-baked voice-control system, I could snag an Android phone for $49 at T-Mobile," he groused.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/20/apples-siri-still-hates-british-and-southerners/?test=faces?test=faces
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