Welcome Home (Pod), a Very Short Play About Apple’s Inexcusable Failure to Recognize Even Mildly Disfluent Speech
JARED
Hey Siri, play, uhh—
HOMEPOD
(Siri light turns on)
IPHONE, IPAD, APPLE WATCH
(Siri reacting on all of them)
Beep-beep!
JARED
(still thinking, all those devices reacting doesn’t help)
—umm…
HOMEPOD
(resumes playback of the previous song from an hour earlier)
IPHONE, IPAD, APPLE WATCH
(go dark again)
JARED
No! Stop!
HOMEPOD
(continues playing)
JARED
Stop playi—
(irritated, but finally remembering to use the key phrase)
Hey Siri—
IPHONE, IPAD, APPLE WATCH
Beep-beep!
JARED
—stop playing.
HOMEPOD
(stops)
The front door opens as HENRY, four-and-a-half years old, comes in the door after a weekend at his grandmother’s.
HENRY
Hi Daddy!
(notices the Home Pod)
What’s that?
JARED
It’s a Home Pod.
HENRY
Hōmpa?
JARED
(enunciating exaggeratedly)
Hō-muh Pô-duh.
HENRY
Home Pod? What’s it do?
JARED
It has Siri on it, it plays music.
Henry is excited. He’s thinking of a song in his dad’s “Henry” playlist called “Drift feat. RZA” that he’s been listening to at least twice a day for the past few weeks. He leans his face towards the top of the Home Pod.
HENRY
Play Drift!
The Home Pod does not respond.
JARED
No, you have to say “Hey Siri”
IPHONE, IPAD, APPLE WATCH
Beep-beep!
HOME POD
(lights up)
HENRY
Hey Siri! Play Drift!
HOME POD
Okay, playing Drift by Joshua Lee.
(wrong song starts playing)
HENRY
No! Siri, play Drift from Pacific Rim!
HOME POD
(unresponsive, continues playing wrong song)
JARED
No, you have to say
(quietly this time)
“Hey Siri”
HOME POD
(lights up, ducking the audio)
HENRY
Siri!
(with some disfluency typical of his age)
Play Pacifi— play Drift from Pacific Rim.
HOME POD
OK, here’s some Dr. Dre just for you.
(Dr. Dre starts)
HENRY
Hey Siri! Play the Drift song from Pacific Rim.
HOME POD
I couldn’t find “Fred’s F****g Pussy” in your library or on Apple Music.
(Dr. Dre resumes)
HENRY
Siri! Play the Drift song from Pacific— from Pacific Rim.
HOME POD
(Dr. Dre continues, unabated)
JARED
(loudly, over the music)
You’ve gotta say “Hey Siri”
IPHONE, IPAD, APPLE WATCH
Beep-beep!
HOME POD
(lights up, ducking the audio)
HENRY
Siri! Play Drift from Pacific Rim
HOME POD
I couldn’t find Drake Pacific Rim in your library or on Apple Music.
(Dr. Dre continues)
JARED
Hey Siri, stop playing.
HOME POD
(stops)
HENRY
Hey Siri, play Drift from Pacific Rim
HOME POD
I couldn’t find Drift From Pacific Rim in your library or on Apple Music.
JARED
(enunciating exaggeratedly)
Hey Siri, play the song Drift from the Pacific Rim soundtrack.
HOME POD
OK, now playing “Drift featuring RZA” by Blake Perlman and RZA.
(Correct song starts)