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Apple Tells Siri To Stop Recommending Nokia

Posted by samzenpus on from the pick-the-other-guy dept.

judgecorp writes "Apple has changed the answer Siri gives to the question 'What is the best smartphone ever?' to prevent the voice-driven assistant from promoting the Nokia Lumia 900. Originally Siri trawled online reviews on the web, using the Wolfram Alpha search engine, to come up with the Lumia, much to Apple's embarrassment. Now, Apple has intervened, replacing that answer with a joke: 'Wait there are other phones?'"

7 of 337 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not just Apple by smg5266 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I searched "best web browser" on Google and the second result was mozilla.org

  2. Re:Seems more approprate to Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, the "ever" qualifier is what triggered the Wolfram Alpha results. "What is the best phone" without ever always returned the joke.

  3. Odd. by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 5, Informative

    Apple's perfected their time machine, then, because "wait, there are other phones?" is one of the (several) "joke" responses I got from asking "what's the best smartphone?" on the 4S launch day, amongst other responses like "the one you're holding."

    Two minutes on Google backs this up.

    C'mon, people. It isn't that hard.

    --

    Obliteracy: Words with explosions

  4. Change? by wzinc · · Score: 5, Informative

    Depending on the way you asked the question, Siri already told that joke. Maybe they added a few more phrasings, but that joke has been in there for a while, possibly since day one.

  5. Re:The old result was a glitch in WolframAlpha by Smurf · · Score: 5, Informative

    OK, here's an article describing with some more detail what happened.

  6. Re:It didn't do that for me... by tool462 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pretty much. We recently switched cell providers, and my wife opted to get an iPhone. Here is one of her conversations with Siri (details paraphrased/redacted):

    W: Find me a mexican restaurant in __city name__.
    S: I found 23 places near you
    W: (looking at list) Where is __first restaurant in list__.
    S: I can't help you with that.
    W: Habla Espanol?
    S: I don't want to argue with you.

    That was more or less the gist of every conversation she attempted w/ Siri. Never any really useful information. She frequently got "I can't help you with that" or something similar. The only value seems to be the entertainment when you stumble across one of the easter egg phrases. It's like playing around with the old Alice AI bots. It can be fun for a bit, but the novelty wears off quickly, at which point, it's useless.

  7. Re:Not just Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    That is false. You can turn off Siri in the settings and go back to the old voice control from ios 4.x