# Siri 165 Hacker News commenters recommended Siri and 715 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 7 years (23 owners). **Verdict:** Handy for timers, reminders, smart home control and hands-free use while driving, but many find it unreliable, prone to mishearing, and long behind rival assistants. ## Why people recommend it - Reliable timers and alarms (4 comments): "It couldn’t find a file that I know for a fact is on my iCloud, but never had a single problem setting up alarms for any time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49878306)) "I set timers constantly both at home and work and I can’t recall a single time it hasn’t worked." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46115071)) "Siri is extremely useful. That is, if your use cases are limited to: setting a timer" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46590433)) - Hands-free use while driving (5 comments): "The #1 reason is while driving. It's also the only reason I have Siri enabled at all since you can't use CarPlay without enabling it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50105499)) "I mean.. Siri basically works? When I'm driving I say "Hey Siri, find me a gas station along my route", and it does." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48115846)) "I almost entirely use Siri to get directions to places using Google maps with my voice when I'm on CarPlay." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46118455)) - Reminders, lists and home control (5 comments): "Siri has helped me with my clinical ADHD’s executive function failure by allowing me to create todo lists and appointments" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50030575)) "Also quite good for making shopping lists, with some bonus amusement when you get a weird transcription" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46116403)) "I routinely control my home (shades, lights, fans), set reminders for myself, set timers while cooking" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46994350)) - Privacy-focused, on-device processing (3 comments): "If the price for some sort of functioning Siri is my privacy, I’m happy with the current dumb Siri" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48466459)) "At least Siri guarantees the privacy of my data and uses a local model directly on my device" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46514291)) "with a decent index of your personal data in a relatively secure and private fashion" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50072872)) ## What people warn about - Commands fail or misfire (6 comments): "SIRI is really very ordinary, many basic functions that one would guess would be simple like asking it to click on a button that is visible in the UI are hit/miss or do the wrong thing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50082763)) "It generally takes on the second try but a good 30% of the time I'm getting the same acknowledgement it's getting directions and then just silently failing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46115917)) "Most of the time it fails because it plays the wrong song, cannot understand what I say or just refuse to play and ask me to unlock the phone" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46988582)) - Mishears speech (3 comments): "Siri frequently mishears my wife who's from California but doesn't have what I would call an accent any different from mine" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47005573)) "Most of the time it fails because it plays the wrong song, cannot understand what I say or just refuse to play and ask me to unlock the phone" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46988582)) "have functioned perfectly well (aside from having a hard time when i mumble) for years on non-AI versions of Siri" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788671)) - Needs exact phrasing, unpredictable (3 comments): "Siri was arguably better a decade ago when it has deterministic intents that you could trigger with certainty, now it is all seemingly random at time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48556817)) "This is actually one of the issues with Siri today - that context changes the behavior of the command and control engine in interesting ways" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46630119)) "When you have to say the exact right words to Siri, or else she will add “Meeting at 10” as an all day calendar event, people get frustrated" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46817687)) - Neglected, lags rival assistants (4 comments): "“Siri” has a pretty strong cultural association with being underwhelming or unhelpful." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48449797)) "The Siri situation is just absolutely pathetic and no amount of bad press about OpenAI is going to change the fact that Apple neglecting Siri for a decade now" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48946822)) "Siri was one of the leading voice-automated assistants of the past decade, and now Apple's only options are to strap on an existing solution" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602974)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Google Assistant](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-assistant.md): 33 recommend - [Grok voice](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grok-voice-mode.md): 9 recommend - [Jarvis](https://hackerapproved.com/p/own-personal-jarvis.md): 7 recommend - [ChatGPT Live](https://hackerapproved.com/p/chatgpt-live.md): 7 recommend - [Claude Voice](https://hackerapproved.com/p/claude-voice-mode.md): 6 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Siri", https://hackerapproved.com/p/siri/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).