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Siri On Mac Concept

I don't know, I like it....it's basically like Notification Center in the way it's....used i guess
 
Apple has had some concept of this shipping since 1993, called Speakable Items (System Preferences->Speech). It can't tell you the weather, but it can tell you a joke or what time it is, switch between applications, etc. If you download additional voices through System Preferences, you can get Samantha, which is the voice of Siri.

I've been the most impressed with the Swedish voices you can download, both Oskar and Alva. I don't know if of the nature of the Swedish language, but they are very smooth, not halting at all. For American English with Siri, I think Apple should have gone with Alex; his voice is much less annoying than Samantha's, though still not as smooth as the Swedish voices. Even having my Mac speak English phrases with the Swedish voices is smooth and pleasant (although it of course sounds like gibberish).

EDIT:

I just played around with Speakable Items for fun, and its speech recognition seems far worse than back during the 90s. I tried asking it to tell me a joke about 10 times and it didn't recognize me once. Pretty typical of Apple. They ignore something completely until they want to be the best at it. This functionality has been around even before System 7 and it hasn't really been changed!
 
swingerofbirch said:
Apple has had some concept of this shipping since 1993, called Speakable Items (System Preferences->Speech). It can't tell you the weather, but it can tell you a joke or what time it is, switch between applications, etc. If you download additional voices through System Preferences, you can get Samantha, which is the voice of Siri.

I've been the most impressed with the Swedish voices you can download, both Oskar and Alva. I don't know if of the nature of the Swedish language, but they are very smooth, not halting at all. For American English with Siri, I think Apple should have gone with Alex; his voice is much less annoying than Samantha's, though still not as smooth as the Swedish voices. Even having my Mac speak English phrases with the Swedish voices is smooth and pleasant (although it of course sounds like gibberish).

EDIT:

I just played around with Speakable Items for fun, and its speech recognition seems far worse than back during the 90s. I tried asking it to tell me a joke about 10 times and it didn't recognize me once. Pretty typical of Apple. They ignore something completely until they want to be the best at it. This functionality has been around even before System 7 and it hasn't really been changed!
Click to expand...

speakable items are useful, but you have to adapt your voice to it, which is a pain. Siri has servers, and therefore can adapt TO YOU, while speakable items is only local on your mac.
 
ppcg4mac said:
speakable items are useful, but you have to adapt your voice to it, which is a pain. Siri has servers, and therefore can adapt TO YOU, while speakable items is only local on your mac.
Click to expand...

To a point the old Speakable Items does adapt to you, it's simply not as effective in doing so. Siri's server-based solution is not primarily designed to adapt to you, but to decrease the speed of processing your speech and turning it into action. That decrease in speed does help, but the adaptation is more due to the actual voice processing than the fact that it's server-based.

EDIT: Definitely look at the old concept of Apple's that this is really all working towards, which was in the suggested links for that video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYFEI6uLy0&feature=related

jW
 
Does this mean I am going to hear 250 people at once asking Siri for things in the office. Guess Ill be keeping my door closed more!
 
Mattie Num Nums said:
Does this mean I am going to hear 250 people at once asking Siri for things in the office. Guess Ill be keeping my door closed more!
Click to expand...

This is one of the problems with voice control in general. I had a good friend (who just died a week ago today:() who was a huge advocate of voice control, and I had a number of arguments with him about the feasibility of it in public. He went so far as to suggest a flip-down mouth guard type of device that you could wear to cover your mouth and muffle the sound. Of course, if this country needed to be any more anti-social, that would do it.

Voice control has it's place, of course, and in the car or other situations where hands-free control is necessary, it's great, as well as dictation, but I question how great it really is for this usage. I wouldn't mind having it available, though.

jW
 
Mal said:
This is one of the problems with voice control in general. I had a good friend (who just died a week ago today:() who was a huge advocate of voice control, and I had a number of arguments with him about the feasibility of it in public. He went so far as to suggest a flip-down mouth guard type of device that you could wear to cover your mouth and muffle the sound. Of course, if this country needed to be any more anti-social, that would do it.

Voice control has it's place, of course, and in the car or other situations where hands-free control is necessary, it's great, as well as dictation, but I question how great it really is for this usage. I wouldn't mind having it available, though.

jW
Click to expand...

I was at a restaurant waiting for food on Saturday and listened to this guy practically beg Siri to find something for him. Just use the damn Maps app dude!
 
Mal said:
This is one of the problems with voice control in general. I had a good friend (who just died a week ago today:() who was a huge advocate of voice control, and I had a number of arguments with him about the feasibility of it in public. He went so far as to suggest a flip-down mouth guard type of device that you could wear to cover your mouth and muffle the sound. Of course, if this country needed to be any more anti-social, that would do it.

Voice control has it's place, of course, and in the car or other situations where hands-free control is necessary, it's great, as well as dictation, but I question how great it really is for this usage. I wouldn't mind having it available, though.

jW
Click to expand...

That's a fascinating idea. You know it makes think of some future in which we all wear those devices translators wear at the UN (I've always wanted to find what they're called; I can't even remember what they look like, but I think it's a device that goes over your mouth so that you can speak without people around you hearing you and your voice is transmitted to the person who needs the translation). It would be funny to see a future where all of us are wearing some sort of device like (something that looks like a scuba mask) walking around a shopping mall, all of us talking to people and devices instead of the people around us. And you might have some sort of cap you take off to talk directly those around you when needed.

I'm not saying it's a good vision of the future, but interesting.
 
ixodes said:
Siri is obnoxious.

I'm not amused, I'll leave that for others.
Click to expand...

I don't have an iPhone and haven't used Siri. But those beeps and her voice, I agree, are obnoxious. I wrote in a different forum that I think if Apple believes this is a new and permanent UI paradigm it should be integrated into the OS and not made as a persona and buddy. I haven't used Google's voice recognition, so I can't compare the performance of each, but I prefer the idea of voice recognition being a passive service (that is, not saying "I found the weather for you . . ." and instead saying "Weather forecast . . . "

Something about Siri being a persona and buddy seems gimmicky, and I think it would probably annoy me over time.
 
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