iOS 8 makes Siri smarter and more accurate, but one feature of the newly improved virtual assistant has become a bit more annoying that it probably should be. The "Hey, Siri" command, which lets you activate her without touching your phone, as long as it's plugged into a power source, seems to have a habit of randomly activating at rather odd times.
Multiple members of the TUAW staff have had Siri wake up at awkward times:
- Erica's iPhone woke Siri while she was watching a video on that same device, with seemingly no triggering phrase having initiated it.
- Steve's iPhone thought he was talking to it when he said "Hey sweetie" to his wife, at which point Siri took over and asked what he wanted to talk about. Laughter ensued.
- My own tests show that my phone is sensitive to the phrase "Hey Jerry," and even transcribes it perfectly when it wakes up, showing that the phone knows exactly what I said, but decided to wake up anyway. Maybe it's a Seinfeld fan?
I also tested the phrase with a voice memo, which provided conclusive proof that the phone will wake up to the phrase "Hey Siri" even when the phone itself is the one doing the talking. Can you imagine the potential trolling opportunities that music artists now have? If someone inserts the phrase "Hey Siri" into their hit song, there are going to be a lot of confused iPhone users out there.
Of course, you can completely disable the voice activation feature by heading into your settings app, the General menu, and then clicking on the Siri menu option. Toggle "Hey Siri" off and you won't have to worry about it again.
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