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Siri limited outside the US; international improvements coming in 2012

by Michael Grothaus Oct 14th 2011 at 2:00PM

Siri, the intelligent voice recognition software in iOS 5, is the biggest feature of the new iPhone 4s, which launched today. However, it's slowly becoming apparent that users outside the US are finding limitations on what Siri will do. MacStories has done a good job of rounding up some of the limitations of Siri's advertised features outside of the US:

  • Business lookup (with Yelp integration) is not available outside the US.
  • Map directions and traffic data is not available outside the US.
  • Besides US, UK, and Australian accents, Siri may have some trouble with "very specific" English accents.
  • Wolfram Alpha integration is only available to English-speaking countries at the moment.

This is nowhere an exhaustive list as I'm sure we will see more reports of Siri's limitations flow in from other countries the 4s launched in today (the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, UK, France, and Germany). To be fair though, Apple has labeled Siri as "beta" software from the beginning and is sure to add features for other countries as time goes on. Matter of fact, Apple has already noted on Siri's FAQ that "Maps and local search support will be available in additional countries in 2012" and "In 2012, Siri will support additional languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish."

[Image credit to MacStories]



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Siri, the intelligent voice recognition software in iOS 5, is the biggest feature of the new iPhone 4s, which launched today. However,...
 

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11 Comments

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Aizei

I livE in Scotland, which is IN the uk, so is northern Ireland and Wales. Yet Siri only works with the English! My accent is in no way a thick accent and I'm easily understood on holidays to the us etc. so why does Siri get only 20% of the things I say. Apple need to recognise that england does not mean UK and is made up of 4 separate countries

October 17 2011 at 7:42 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Aizei's comment
Aizei

please excuse my terrible grammar/spelling, wet iPad + autocorrect= semi fail. Thinking of getting people from England, northern Ireland and Wales to record themselves using siri to show how much it fails a major portion of the UK

October 17 2011 at 7:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Michael

I think you will find a lot of those restrictions have less to do with Siri and more to do with the information services available outside the US. Commonwealth countries for example are far less obsessed with getting food as fast or efficiently as possible, and consequently have limited restaurant/food locating services; our traffic information services are also relatively weak compared to the US. Siri could improve in so many ways technically, but she is still limited by the information services that are made available to her, Beta or not.

October 17 2011 at 6:18 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Colin Chau

What about Canadian accents..... Siri would have trouble with that?

October 16 2011 at 5:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mguniverse

Let me use it on my iPhone 4. >.<

October 16 2011 at 4:41 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
JC

Are you kidding me, not knowing the time in Montreal? Funny, because all cellphones get their time from the basestation. Be thankful that Siri understands English eh. Dumb Beta-like Siri so un-Apple.

October 15 2011 at 10:13 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Headset Chatter

Question: does Siri require an internet connection just to process the speech recognition, even if the task you're asking for can be accomplished offline?

October 14 2011 at 3:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to Headset Chatter's comment
ben

Yeah, this made me kind of sad. But for now there is always the google search app!

October 14 2011 at 2:13 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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