43321502: Responses in custom Siri intents doesn't use fallback language

[openradar-mirror]

Description

Summary: When triggering a Siri Shortcut that is based on a custom intent and that intent has a custom response template which the intent handler provides in the completion block, Siri will only show and read the response, if the template is localised to the language of Siri.

This effectively forces developers (including indie developers) using advanced features of custom Siri intents to localise their apps into all languages that Siri support and continuously add new languages as Siri gets new languages otherwise the Siri Shortcuts the app provides is rendered useless.

Imagine a currency conversion app. The user has a shortcut to convert one US dollar to British pounds. The app has the custom response template “[formattedSource] equals [formattedDestination]” making Siri show “1 USD equals 0,78 GPB” when the shortcut is run. If the app is only localised into a few languages or even only localised into English, which is not uncommon on the App Store, users who are using Siri in a different language, e.g. Italian, Dutch or Danish, will not be shown the result. Siri will just say “Done”, or whatever phrase is appropriate for the specified intent category and show a the name and icon of the shortcut.

Please see the attached screenshots for a comparison between triggering a shortcut with Siri set to English and then Danish in an app that’s only localised to English.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Create an app with and make sure it’s only localised into English.
2. Add an intent definition with a custom intent and add a custom response with a template for that intent.
3. Run your app and mak sure to donate or suggest one or more interactions based on the custom intent.
4. Add the shortcut from Settings.app.
5. Make sure the language of Siri is set to English.
6. Trigger your shortcut. Everything is working fine.
7. Now change to language of Siri, e.g. to Danish, Italian or some other language.
8. Trigger your shortcut. Siri doesn’t show or read your custom response.

Expected Results: Like all other cases in apps, the custom responses should fallback to a language supported by the app. E.g. if the users device language is set to Danish but an app is only translated into English and Italian, the app will fallback to the English language.

I understand there are complications to this where Siri would read and show texts in languages that it is not configured to but this is already the case in other parts of the OS, e.g. in Maps, and I firmly believe that the current experience where no text is shown is worse.

Actual Results: Siri doesn’t show the custom response, i.e. it doesn’t fallback to another language supported by the app.

Version: 12.0 (16A5354b)

Notes:

- Product Version: 12.0 (16A5354b) Created: 2018-08-15T06:46:49.936260 Originated: 2018-08-15T08:46:00 Open Radar Link: http://www.openradar.me/43321502

[openradar-mirror]

Modified: 2018-08-24T06:31:33.550910

[openradar-mirror]

Modified: 2018-08-24T06:31:33.550910

[openradar-mirror]

Modified: 2018-08-24T06:31:33.550910

[openradar-mirror]

Modified: 2018-08-24T06:31:33.550910

[openradar-mirror]

Modified: 2018-08-24T06:31:33.550910

[openradar-mirror]

Modified: 2018-08-24T06:31:33.550910

[openradar-mirror]

Modified: 2018-08-24T06:31:33.550910

[openradar-mirror]

Modified: 2018-08-24T06:31:33.550910