Simon was waiting for a ride home one evening when he received a strange notification on his iPhone. It appeared with the iMessage logo, almost like a text message, but it was a suggestion from Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant. “Start a Check In with Daniel,” the phone prompted him. “Let them know when you arrive at your destination.”
Simon, who works in artificial intelligence at a company in British Columbia and asked to be identified only by his first name because he was commenting on the work of another tech company, was amused by the notification and took a screenshot. Daniel was his old roommate who lived nearly 5,000 miles away, on a completely different continent: Why on earth would his phone think he’d want to check in with him?
“I found it funny,” Simon said in a phone interview. “He is in my Favorites on my phone, so I’m guessing that’s how Apple does these recommendations. But it still just doesn’t make any sense, because I also have his address saved in my contacts, so my phone should know that we live on different continents.”
Other iPhone users have not been so amused by the Siri feature, which was released with iOS 17 last year. Since then, the internet has been inundated with posts from users wondering why their phones want them to check in with seemingly random contacts.
Many have taken to Reddit, describing the prompts as distressing or surprising, with some saying the messages had caused tension in their relationships over what felt like an attempt to control their movements. One user was asked to Check In with an ex they were no longer in touch with and others were asked to send them to managers, casual acquaintances, old enemies and, on at least one occasion, a deceased mother.
Leo Margul, a 37-year-old writer living in Los Angeles, said that on two occasions he was leaving concerts when Siri prompted him to start a Check In with his mother, who lives across the country in Boston. When he posted the screenshot to Reddit, other users chimed in to say that they had received similar notifications, but that their parents had passed away.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.jili777