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0 pointsthreatofrain7y ago0 comments

After so many years Siri still doesn’t do “take me to the nearest McDonald’s” like Google Assistant can. And whenever Siri isn’t “confident” it just launches Safari, but it’s often not even the best starting point, and Siri sometimes gives up silently without feedback.

Also for a bit of fun, ask Siri for the population of Buffalo NY. I noticed because Siri also tells you that Buffalo is big, and then goes on to say...

0 comments

scarface747y ago

I just tried “take me to the nearest McDonalds” and it replied “which local business, tap the one you want” with a list from nearest to farthest and when I click on it, it gives me directions to the one I choose.

As far as the second question - yeah that one was weird. It said that the population was 69 but the text summary that it displayed was 269,000. It’s the only city that displayed that bug.

threatofrainOP7y ago

Did you see how Google Assistant handles the nearest McDonald’s request? Google doesn’t ask you which McDonald’s is the closest one, tap the one you want.

reaperducer7y ago

I'd rather have the list than a single choice. That way I can pick one that isn't in a crappy neighborhood, or is on the way to a place I'm going anyway.

My biggest frustration with my car's built-in navigation is that when I ask it for the "nearest" item, more than 50% of the time it tells me to make a U-turn because it picked the mathematically nearest item, rather than picking the conventionally nearest item.

2 more replies

scarface747y ago

But that’s more of an interface choice than a technical limitation. Siri both understood the question and had the ability to navigate to it.

In my case, there were 9 McDonalds within a 10 mile radius.

In cases where there was only one location nearby, it took me right to it.

3 more replies

bosie7y ago

"what is the population of buffalo, new york" (that's what i told siri) shows me London?

mcphage7y ago

> Also for a bit of fun, ask Siri for the population of Buffalo NY.

Nice

ryanwaggoner7y ago

Someone at Apple may be reading this thread, because it returned the answer normally for me.

mcphage7y ago

Yeah, they must have—this afternoon it told me the population of Buffalo, New York was 69. I’ve got a window, I was pretty sure that’s not correct.

pen2l7y ago

The worst part for me is it opens it in Safari and not Chrome. (As well that it opens directions with not-Google Maps)

giobox7y ago

Isn’t it still the case that “third party” browsers on iOS are just wrappers around Safari/WebKit anyway?

For the longest time Chrome on iOS was just using WebKit/safari’s UIWebView then later WKWebView for rendering webpages, much like many other iOS apps that display web content. For various reasons the App Store rules have always banned third party browser rendering engines, I haven’t heard any change in this policy recently?

The only real advantage of Chrome on iOS was ancillary features like Google account bookmark/history sync etc if you are all in on Chrome elsewhere, which isn’t all that useful in the context of a link provided by Siri, for me at any rate. The feature that lets apps using WKWebView access your password/auto fill data only works with Safari on iOS as well, which is all the reason I need not to bother with the WebKit-wrapper rivals anyway.

The maps issue is significantly more annoying to me.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

scarface747y ago

As far as the second question - yeah that one was weird. It said that the population was 69 but the text summary that it displayed was 269,000. It’s the only city that displayed that bug.

threatofrainOP7y ago

Did you see how Google Assistant handles the nearest McDonald’s request? Google doesn’t ask you which McDonald’s is the closest one, tap the one you want.

reaperducer7y ago

I'd rather have the list than a single choice. That way I can pick one that isn't in a crappy neighborhood, or is on the way to a place I'm going anyway.

2 more replies

scarface747y ago

But that’s more of an interface choice than a technical limitation. Siri both understood the question and had the ability to navigate to it.

In my case, there were 9 McDonalds within a 10 mile radius.

In cases where there was only one location nearby, it took me right to it.

3 more replies

bosie7y ago

"what is the population of buffalo, new york" (that's what i told siri) shows me London?

mcphage7y ago

> Also for a bit of fun, ask Siri for the population of Buffalo NY.

Nice

ryanwaggoner7y ago

Someone at Apple may be reading this thread, because it returned the answer normally for me.

mcphage7y ago

Yeah, they must have—this afternoon it told me the population of Buffalo, New York was 69. I’ve got a window, I was pretty sure that’s not correct.

pen2l7y ago

The worst part for me is it opens it in Safari and not Chrome. (As well that it opens directions with not-Google Maps)

giobox7y ago

Isn’t it still the case that “third party” browsers on iOS are just wrappers around Safari/WebKit anyway?

The maps issue is significantly more annoying to me.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse