I’ve written before that Siri, in spite of its flaws, is improving quickly. To that end, I occasionally challenge myself to think of ways that it might make my repeated tasks even more effortless.

I alternate mornings with my wife, taking either our 4-year-old, Matthew, to school, or our 7-year-old, Henry, to a different school. The responsibilities come with a different wake-up time, so I have two pre-set alarms in my phone: one for 7:00AM, and one for 7:45AM.

On a typical weeknight I set one or the other, either by tapping into the Clock app and toggling it on, or by asking Siri to for example “wake me up at 7:45AM.” It’s smart enough at least to notice the existing alarm, and doesn’t set a redundant one. Today I thought it would be nice to add labels to my alarms, so that when I’m awakened, any doubt about what my responsibilities are will be quickly clarified:

Having labeled the alarms, I thought I’d test Siri’s prowess: “Hey Siri, set my Henry School Day alarm.” Sigh. No dice:

Here’s an example where Siri is frustratingly dense about something that seems so obvious, at least in retrospect. All is not lost, though. It turns out that although it doesn’t have a clue what “my Henry School Day alarm” is, it knows full well what “the Henry School Day alarm” is:

I’ve filed Radar #26696594 requesting that “Siri should recognize MY alarms as readily as THE alarms”.