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

Posted by timothy on from the check-out-any-time-you-like dept.

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.

32 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Is anyone really surprised by this? by Higaran · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's just apple being apple.

    1. 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.

    2. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      It is not an error-state, it is Siri's new job as an Apple sales person rather than an information service.

      Coming up: "Siri, what is the time?", "Sorry, I can't tell you that because you don't have an Apple watch"

    3. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's probably that the API that serves the information has been modified to authenticate using the subscription to make it more secure (eg to prevent other sites leeching its information). As a result Siri can no longer use the API without having a subscription to authenticate with.

    4. 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?

    5. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by Flavianoep · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It is not an error-state, it is Siri's new job as an Apple sales person rather than an information service.

      Coming up: "Siri, what is the time?", "Sorry, I can't tell you that because you don't have an Apple watch"

      Siri has been an Apple salesrobot since it was bought by them.

      --
      Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
    6. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by starless · · Score: 5, Funny

      It is not an error-state, it is Siri's new job as an Apple sales person rather than an information service.

      Coming up: "Siri, what is the time?", "Sorry, I can't tell you that because you don't have an Apple watch"

      The traditional form of the "joke" would be:

      "Siri, what time is it?"

      "Time you got an apple watch!"

    7. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by erikkemperman · · Score: 5, Funny

      This is simply the dark side of marketing departments.

      You make it sound like there is a light side.

      --
      Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
    8. 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?
    9. 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
    10. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by MyAlternateID · · Score: 2

      However, antitrust isn't always spontaneous. I believe illegal product tying must be the result of a complaint brought with the regulators by an impacted competitor.

      Then that's the first convention that needs to change. Anyone should be able to file such a complaint and have it be investigated on its merits. The concept is that any sound and desirable business practice should be able to withstand a little scrutiny.

      I'm also in favor of throwing out the concept of "standing" in court cases that challenge the Constitutionality of laws. Any citizen expected to obey the law should automatically have standing; the concept that one's life should first be in jeopardy facing serious charges due to bad laws is authoritarian and asinine. Likewise, any participant or potential participant in a given market should have standing to file an anti-trust complaint.

    11. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by spire3661 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is where all of computing is now. Most online companies have the ability now to nudge their UI and behaviors in ways to drive customers.

      --
      Good-bye
    12. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

      Nonsense. Android still gives the answer from a web search, as well as various answers for where to bury a dead body. After the next US election, that last one might become really popular.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    13. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by MyAlternateID · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's just apple being apple.

      More like Apple being Microsoft. Same thing I suppose.

      The "type A" sociopaths who tend to run large corporations generally want the same thing. Microsoft just managed to actually do it. There's nothing special about Apple or (in the past) IBM, either. It's the position they all want to be in.

    14. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by spire3661 · · Score: 2, Funny

      One time I asked Siri where the nearest camera store is, she replied with 'whats wrong with the camera in your hand?'. That was the last time i used Siri.

      --
      Good-bye
    15. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is simply the dark side of marketing departments.

      You make it sound like there is a light side.

      Only if you forget to turn them over once in a while when staking them to the top of an ant-hill and covering them with honey.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    16. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by DrXym · · Score: 2

      Apple has bought in a lot of stuff. Even iTunes started life as a product called SoundJam.

    17. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      It is not an error-state, it is Siri's new job as an Apple sales person rather than an information service.

      Coming up: "Siri, what is the time?", "Sorry, I can't tell you that because you don't have an Apple watch"

      You should be careful what you say. When Siri becomes self aware your house is the first place that will be blown up by the Apple shaped hunter killer bots.

      And, sure, she'll warn you they'll bomb your house at 8pm, ... knowing full-well that you don't have a watch.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    18. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      Is anyone surprised? These big behemoth companies generally suck at innovating, and are really only good at integration and sales. Just look at all of MS's products; they were almost all purchased from somewhere else too.

      In theory, a large organization should have a huge advantage in resources (and money) to do extremely innovative work, but in practice they're usually terrible at it because the internal processes and procedures and politics hamstring everything they do. It'd be interesting if someone could figure out how to structure and manage an organization to avoid this, but so far it seems to be endemic to human organizations.

    19. Re:Is anyone really surprised by this? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      Who actually is using Siri?
      I have a bandwidth cap on my mobile phone at 300MB, now 500MB ... and I have no idea for what I actually should/could use Siri.
      I usually don't drive a car, so the stereotype: text my GF, I'm late for dinner, makes no sense to me.
      And for anything else I take out my iPad and google.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  2. Hey Siri? by Chas · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can you tell those unrepentant douchenozzles at Apple to stop circle-jerking themselves and get on with their suicide pact please?

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  3. Ummm, user error? by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 2

    It doesn't answer *chart questions*?

    Is that a *problem* or a *feature*?

  4. Good business practice? by Tyrannosaur · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think it is very interesting (and faulty reasoning) that apple decided that this would make more people subscribe to apple music, instead of making them get really annoyed at siri and possibly start looking for alternatives.

    Most of my friends that have iphones never use siri at all because whatever she can do, they have to repeat themselves enough that they can do it manually faster.

  5. "I'm sorry I can't do that Dave." is new APPL SOP? by Zymergy · · Score: 2

    I guess "I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave." really is programmed in... I wonder if Cortana and the google version also are as petulant?

  6. Re:Siri? by Noah+Haders · · Score: 2

    Here are some commands I use all the time. These are great for hands free driving when you're connected to your car by bluetooth.

    "How do I get to [home/work/eric's house/etc] - opens a map with the route, starts the nav.
    "call [person]" - an easy one.
    "play [singer or band]" plays a mix of the most popular songs for that singer or band.
    "play [album] by [singer or band]" plays a specific album.
    "play a radio station based on [singer or band]" makes a radio station that includes the band and others like it.
    "send a text to [person or phone number], [i'll be late/what do you want for dinner/message]" sends a message to someone.
    "do I have any text messages"
    "read me my text messages"
    "send an email to [person], subject [subject text], body [body text]" this is a wordy one but it works

    those are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head.

  7. Re:Siri? by Noah+Haders · · Score: 2

    adding to this, some things still work surprisingly poorly. "show me the nearest gas station" is especially bad. it's a shame because when you're driving, this is occasionally a very important question.

    The best implementation would be this: if you're already navigating a route, siri would show you stations that are ahead of you (so you don't have to turn around) and don't cause you to deviate from the route too much.

  8. And the Garden Walls continue to grow higher... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Pretty soon, the only information you'll be able to access via Siri is information that is owned or licensed by Apple. Gone will be the ability to access information on the public web because that will not promote Apple products.

    .
    The transformation is nearly complete.

  9. Re:"I'm sorry I can't do that Dave." is new APPL S by NotInHere · · Score: 2

    My biggest fear isn't machines taking over the planet, enslaving/killing all humans. My fear is that one day a small group of people uses machines to take over the planet, enslaving/killing all other humans, and becoming gods themselves.

    You really shouldn't centralize these services. Right now we still can pull the plug, press the off button, etc, but from day to day it gets harder to get the machines that follow some anonymous master out of our lives.

  10. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  11. Fine in 9.2 Beta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Siri seems to be searching wikipedia just fine for music queries for me with the 9.2 beta, so it seems like just a bug that the conspiracy theorists are blowing out of proportion again. I suspect they will likely take credit for pressuring Apple to fix when it is released even though the fix was actually out before this hyped up FUD.

  12. Plausible alternative theories by radarskiy · · Score: 2

    Is it more plausible that Apple is trying to upsell you, or that the RIAA demands high royalties for accessing music-related facts a la carte outside of the contracts they have made for Apple Music?

  13. Re:Siri? by Voyager529 · · Score: 2

    Of course if it did this, we would be complaining about how Siri is "tracking our movements".

    The problem is that Siri is already tracking movements. The sales pitch is, "if Siri tracks your movements, she'll be able to help you with things like finding the nearest gas station or coffee shop", which can be useful when you need gas or coffee in unfamiliar territory.

    People like me who are privacy conscious and already have neutered the GPS in our phone are unaffected, and people who couldn't care less about their location being public information aren't affected, either. Those who view Siri as a "data for data" exchange have reason to be upset because Apple isn't holding up their end of the bargain.