If you are an iPhone 4S owner, you could have been one among thousands of users who might have started experiencing problems with Siri, the virtual assistant. Apparently, several users, since November 5, 2011 have begun to complain about Siri problems where the virtual assistant keeps giving responses such as “What was that again?”, “I am sorry, could you repeat that”, “I am not able to understand the question” and several other similar variations. In some cases, Siri problems have resulted in even more blunt answers like “I am sorry, I am not able to connect to the network”.
Update – April 2012
If you are still having problems with Siri, please read through our update on the 30th of November (mentioned three paragraphs down), when we talked about how a hard reset might get it working again. A recent look at the discussion boards at apple.com seems to suggest that the problems with Siri are still ongoing, in a sporadic manner. People are still saying that Siri seems to be working fine on one day while it is basically useless on another day, for no apparent reason.
Interestingly, Apple have not made an official appearance in the complaint thread at the Apple discussion forum. You would think that somebody would step in and own up to the problems or at least provide solutions to it. However, so far, it seems to be a situation where iPhone users are basically trying to help out other iPhone 4S users, with their own quirky ways to get Siri working. Some are saying that they can get Siri to work only when they have a full signal strength while some are saying that they have basically turned off Siri, to avoid all the frustration.
One person has even humorously joked that Apple should rename Siri as “Sorry”, as all it does is say “Sorry” these days. Then, there are the few staunch Apple supporters who come to Apple’s defense, saying that Siri was a beta product and that it is still a beta product. The reasoning that Siri was a beta product is fine. However, if it was a beta product, Apple shouldn’t have advertised Siri so aggressively. They basically differentiated the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 4 with Siri, the revolutionary virtual assistant. Considering that it has been more than 7 months since the launch of Siri beta, you would think that a full version of Siri would be out already, is it not?
Update – November 30, 2011
We have had a lot of people say that Siri has completely stopped functioning for them. Here is a solution that might fix the problem for you. It is a multi-step process but it will at least get the virtual assistant to work again.
- Turn Siri off by going to settings
- Do a hard reset of your 4S. That is, hold the home button and off switch together for a few seconds until you see the Apple logo pop up on the screen. Don’t worry about losing data. It is just a reset.
- Once the phone has reset, go to network settings and do a reset.
- Turn off the phone and wait 10 seconds and then turn it back on.
- Turn Siri back on
- It should hopefully be working again!
Previously posted…
Apple has always been a company that has put out rock solid products and services and several people are disappointed by the fact that the Siri is not working. The most disgruntled users are those who upgraded from an iPhone 4 to an iPhone 4S. Apart from the dual core processor, improved camera optics and the iOS5 operating system, Siri was heavily advertised as one of the selling points of the iPhone 4S. Since Siri is a very tangible aspect of the iPhone 4S (unlike the processor and improved camera), Siri problems are beginning to frustrate users.
At the Apple discussion board, a thread started by one user, about Siri problems, has quickly developed into a thread that runs for more than 10 pages.
What is Apple doing about all the complaints with Siri?
Apple have been very quiet about the whole thing. That has been strategy for a long time now. They usually investigate the problem, wait for a solution and then announce what went on. They did it for the iPhone 4S battery problems and they will do it again for the Siri problems. So, customers will have a few days of frustrating waiting before they get better service or are at least given an excuse for all the Siri problems.
On a positive side of things, we are pretty sure that Apple is trying their best to remedy the situation as they bought a huge data center in North Carolina, just yesterday. Obviously, Apple’s servers have not been able to handle the truck load of requests that keep coming from the iPhone 4S users and it looks like they are doing some intense damage control.
Why is Siri not working even when the user is not requesting online data?
Several iPhone 4S users are extremely frustrated because even simple tasks like sending messages and setting alarms is not being done by Siri. Siri problems would be understandable if all the iPhone 4S users are bombarding the data center with requests about directions, weather reports, and Internet searches like restaurant look ups etc.
But, a vast majority of Siri users are those who use it to send text messages and do other things like calendar scheduling. The problem with the Siri application is that Siri needs to connect to the Apple network even when you say something like “Send text to my wife”. So, essentially, you need the same network connectivity to look up a restaurant on the Internet and also open up the text messager.
Since November 5, many users have been getting this response from Siri, the virtual assistant on the iPhone 4S
Can you fix it yourself?
Several users have had some temporary success with a simple reset of the Siri application. To reset Siri in your iPhone 4S, go to settings and then choose the general icon. Then, choose Siri and turn it off. Then, go to settings and then select general again and select reset and reset your network settings.Then, turn Siri back on. You might be able to get it working although there is a chance that it might crash again, at least until Apple fixes whatever is wrong.
Are you having problems with your Siri assistant? Have you been able to get it fixed? Let us know, use the comment box below.
Did you know that the iPhone 5 could have an advanced virtual assistant Siri that will be able to do a lot more than what Siri on 4S does? Check out similar iPhone 5 news at this iPhone 5 news blog.