Majority of Siri Users Satisfied with Feature, Don’t Want it on TV

Most Siri users consider themselves either “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with Apple’s voice-enabled personal assistant, according to a survey from Parks Associates.

An impressive 50 percent of respondents said they were very satisfied with Siri. Another 21 percent said they were satisfied with the iPhone 4S feature. But as enthusiastic as Siri users were about the technology, they appear less keen about it in other applications, most notably in a television set. Only 37 percent of respondents said they would like Siri for their TVs, while 20 percent entirely opposed the idea.

“Siri is clearly a hit among the initial iPhone user base,” John Barrett, director of consumer analytics for Parks Associates, said in a statement.

“However,” he added, “I would have expected more owners to want Siri for their TV set. These are the folks that rushed out to get the new iPhone 4S.”

Rumors of an Apple television set have been swirling for months, with prototypes being reported in Canada. A common thread in all the speculation about the TV set is that is will incorporate speech recognition and commands in its interface, so the survey’s results could serve as a warning sign for Apple regarding Siri’s entry into the living room.

“People are expressing some reservations about Siri that could impact its popularity on other platforms,” Barrett observed. “Some said Siri didn’t work well against background noise. Others said it had trouble understanding commands. These problems could be amplified in a noisy living room, where the main TV would be located.”

At least one Siri user has done more than complain about the technology. Frank M. Fazio, of Brooklyn, N.Y., filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple because Siri can’t understand directions, locate nearby stores and often produces incorrect answers.

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