Siri is so bad as a voice assistant that it made me stop caring about device-local AI, which is impressive. Yesterday, “hey Siri, turn off the bedroom lights” worked. Today, that responded with “sorry, I can only set one scene at a time”. The proper phrasing — for now — is “hey Siri, turn the bedroom lights off.”

Walking to work, “hey Siri, podcasts play”, which is/was the documented way to play a podcast, started streaming random music. “Hey Siri, play a 🤬🤬🤬 podcast” did the trick.

I just successfully performed concussive maintenance on a recalcitrant smart speaker.

Me: Hey Siri, play music for me.

HomePod: Here is some music just for you… Sorry, there was a problem with Apple Music.

Me: bops the HomePod in frustration

HomePod: Here is some music just for you… 🎵🎵🎵

Me: That worked?

(If I asked it other questions, like “Hey Siri, what’s my next appointment?”, it’d correctly answer with my personal information. It only affected Apple Music.)