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How does it perform on the street or in the car ? Does it work with loud music in the background? What about if more people talk in the restaurant? How fast is it via 3g?

its a phone!!!! really? a phone! ...guess I'm the chump who thought this was all sifi 2 years ago
 
lol

Macworld review .. @4.17 while showing of the dictate feature. It understands .. iPhone 4 ass :)

T.
 
This makes me very curious why Siri is limited to the iPhone 4S. The above quote makes it sound like the heavy lifting of voice recognition is all done server-side, and therefore processing power of the device shouldn't be a factor. I wonder whether that's actually the case, though. I see two possibilities:

  • The device does voice recognition processing onboard, and then sends the resulting text to the server to go off and find an answer and/or interpret the meaning of the words. In this case, the claim that only the iPhone 4S has enough processing power is reasonable.

  • Or the device sends the audio directly to the server, which performs voice recognition and language interpretation, as suggested by the above quote. In this case, Siri is disingenuously limited to the latest device, simply to increase sales. But it would also involve uploading a lot more data (audio instead of text), which may suggest that this is not the case? :confused:

In any case, I'd love to know more about the underlying details, purely for curiosity.

Your first option will be solved as a yes or no once someone tests dictation in airplane mode, since that shouldn't rely on Siri's natural language processing, only the speech recognition.

My guess? Locally, the audio signal gets processed and compressed into a form more easily sent over a 3G connection while simultaneously making sure to preserve the information relevant to speech recognition, and then this processed and compressed data is sent to the servers for Nuance's speech recognition and then Siri's natural language processing. My other guess is that this would run on an iPhone 4, but Apple deemed it too slow or otherwise dodgy to officially include it in iOS 5 across the board.

I'm pretty interested in machine learning and natural language processing myself, so even if she isn't perfect in responding to my requests, I'm quite excited about Siri. Hell, she'll still probably be better about it than my ex. :D
 
And there's just too much unnecessary verbal confirmation on Siri's part. It repeats everything too much. Just a couple of beeps indicating it understands would be ok then go do what you were told.

Siri starts searching for the answer as soon as you finish talking. The verbal confirmation is just hiding the fact Siri needs time to process what you are talking on their servers. This way, people think Siri gets the answer in a second, rather than 5.
 
I'm pretty interested in machine learning and natural language processing myself, so even if she isn't perfect in responding to my requests, I'm quite excited about Siri. Hell, she'll still probably be better about it than my ex. :D

LOL, you made me laugh for real. Yeah, it'll be nice to have a gal who talks back but knows her boundaries.

BTW, I wonder if you make a very lewd and vulgar proposition to 'her' how she'll respond.
I guess this is one of those things I'll just have to try for myself. :D
 
I'm very impressed by Siri, I'm wondering though how well it will be able to cope with foreign accents, which are usually the killer of any voice recognition software. I love how many different questions were programmed to it, the "I'm drunk -> here's a list of cab companies" will sure come in handy :D.
 
One thing I'm wondering about, that I haven't seen anybody mention:

Is the sound department (i.e. amp and software) for iPod music playback improved?

I use the iPod on my iPhone ALOT for listening to music on quality headphones, so this would be a very compelling reason for me to upgrade, as I still have the iPhone 2G (lots of other reasons as well!).

The audio on the first iPhone is a little muddy ;)
 
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Just raise it to your ear to activate Siri. You don't need to press any buttons.

is it? thats nice.
it would be nicer if i can just lay it near my bed, and activate Siri by voice without bring the phone closer.

"Siri"

"Yes, Sir"

"Wake me up at 7 am tomorrow"

"Done, anything more?"

Argh.. can wait for the phone to come here in Malaysia
 
I'm going to upgrade this from an iPhone 4 anyway
but please hurry and come to Hong Kong!!!

Don't know why it's taking long to be released in Hong Kong.
Going there on business, but unfortunately it won't be available by then.
 
That will sux if I would have to pronounce everything "exclamation mark" on iphone4 "ass" "period" Dont you agree "question mark" "period""end"
 
Macworld Review Fail

@ 3:50 in Macworld video:

"Note to self (colon) (new line) I need to make some videos about the iPhone 4S (period) They need to be done by Tuesday (exclamation point)"

<see attachment below>

"And there it is. It figured out EXACTLY what I wanted to say."

Mmm... not quite.
 

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The iPhone 4S is to die for. - Steve Jobs


(Steve has a sense of humor... relax)
Just for all posts like that:
I'm pretty sure Steve would've find that funny. He wasn't afraid of death at all. But what I don't know is whether his family and friends would find that very funny. Maybe they all do, but I don't know. So if you don't want to be respectful for Steve's sake, please do it for the sake of his family and friends.
 
Your first option will be solved as a yes or no once someone tests dictation in airplane mode, since that shouldn't rely on Siri's natural language processing, only the speech recognition.

My guess? Locally, the audio signal gets processed and compressed into a form more easily sent over a 3G connection while simultaneously making sure to preserve the information relevant to speech recognition, and then this processed and compressed data is sent to the servers for Nuance's speech recognition and then Siri's natural language processing. My other guess is that this would run on an iPhone 4, but Apple deemed it too slow or otherwise dodgy to officially include it in iOS 5 across the board.

I'm pretty interested in machine learning and natural language processing myself, so even if she isn't perfect in responding to my requests, I'm quite excited about Siri. Hell, she'll still probably be better about it than my ex. :D

Could it maybe, just maybe, be that Apple didn't want to overwhelm its servers on day one with gazillions of Siri requests from the existing iPhone 4/iPad 2 user base but want to ease it in more gently? That might allow them to get up to spec and then switch on iPhone 4 and iPad 2 users?

Just a thought.
 
The articles say you choose your accent from a settings menu in Siri, and with the wrong selection, it won't work.

I have a sort-of-Australian, sort-of-Mainland-Chinese accent with a bit of British and Dutch thrown in. I travelled a lot when I was younger.

I wonder how it will manage. Is there an option for "non-rhotic accent, Australian vowels except for British a's, with Chinese syllable stress and Dutch sounding h's and g's"?
 
I've seen that clip a billion times and it never gets old. Louis CK is hilarious. If you haven't seen his standup specials, I highly recommend them. His latest was wall-to-wall laughs.

He's the best. Love him, love the show, love his stand up.
 
I would love to change her voice :p

Give me the female voice from Mechwarrior 2, or even HAL
 
Of course it's the best iPhone yet, what did you think was gonna happen? "err it's faster and has a better camera and voice works great, but its in no way as good as the iPhone 4" lol please...
 
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