Siri ‘seems to be’ working with Indian accent, but missing the Indian context

The biggest reason to buy an iPhone 4S is Siri. I have listed Siri as one of the 4 things to check upon before you buy an iPhone 4S. Looks like we can take that reason down from the list as NDTV has posted a video of Siri with Indian accent. Or maybe not.

Everything seems to be working except for things that matter. Siri is fine in displaying weather information for all major cities without any glitch. However it had Calcutta in Ohio. And Ohio unfortunately is in the US. And there is a reason for Siri putting Calcutta in Ohio. Calcutta is a census designated place in Columbian county, Ohio.

Moving on, Siri has turned up what’s the latest on Sensex very well. When asked about the latest stock price of Infosys, it turned up a dollar rate. An Indian rupee rate would have been nicer.

Siri never understood the reminder to “carry 5000 rupee when I leave home”

Siri took its time to turn out the answer for “Who’s India’s Prime Minister”. May be it’s confused like everyone in India are. Siri has done well to search the web, book an appointment and few other things. When it came to searching for Diwali, Siri got it right only the second time.

As the makers of Siri are saying, with more data points Siri works even better. Siri is good at context and natural language processing. May be Siri will get used to the Indian accent when more and more people use it.

For me, Siri isn’t ready for India. It seems to be understanding Indian accent but it is missing the Indian context. After all, context is everything isn’t it?

Via NDTV