Slashdot Mirror


Siri Won't Answer Some Questions If You're Not Subscribed To Apple Music

AmiMoJo writes: A tweet from Tom Conrad has highlighted an issue with Apple's Siri digital assistant. When asked certain questions about music, Siri refuses to answer unless you subscribe to Apple Music. Instead of falling back to a web search for the information, Siri tells the user that it cannot respond due to the lack of a subscription. Apple Music has been the source of music related data for Siri since it launched, but until now did not require a subscription to answer questions.

5 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by TWX · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I am, a little, if only because it actually requires more work to create the error-state that causes it to spit-back the answer regarding subscriptions than it does to simply search from the rest of the available information on the Internet, such that two different users may get different results depending on what's in Apple's database that may not be available to one of them.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  2. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by Higaran · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You think this is a tech issue, it's not, it's a corporate one. Some one at apple realized that the numbers of people using their service were a little low, so they told the SIRI team to adjust her to focus people to their service. They don't give a shit if peoples questions are answered or not, they only care that people are using their software.

  3. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by mr_mischief · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is Apple finally a large enough company for antitrust regulators to be concerned about illegal product tying?

  4. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by mwvdlee · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Followed soon by "Siri, what's the weather like?", "Sorry, I can't tell you because we don't yet have a weather reporting product to sell to you.".

    --
    Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
  5. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Okay, but why not fall back to a web search? That's what it does when you ask it other questions that it can't answer itself. Instead it tells you to pay up.

    I think it's an experiment. Apple are trying to see how using Siri, previously your ally and assistant who you trusted all your personal data and private correspondence with, as a salesperson makes people react. It's almost like your friend telling you to buy something, because they have your best interests at heart.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC