Seriously, whats the point of Siri?

[kdarling]

Tell me how being able to read and write messages hands free isn't a powerful tool? Or, being able to ask a phone for almost any type of information without having to type it not a powerful tool?

Is being able to open Notepad and simply speaking to the phone as it writes down whatever you say not a powerful tool?

Yes, that's handy, and all are simple speech to text actions that you can do with Android today. No AI required.

I went out to eat and get a beer with some buddies after class the other day and told my girlfriend i would pick her up a sandwich on the way home and drop it by. If i had siri, i would have been able to say "remind me to go to [insert place] after i leave [the place i was at]." and i wouldn't have forgot.

That's a much better example, although of course you still had to remember to tell Siri to set a reminder. And you would've had to do it while at the bar so it knew what place you'd be leaving. Too many chances to slip up.

What would be even better is if your phone was _always_ listening, and overheard you promise your girlfriend the sandwich. Then it could've entered the reminder all on its own

One day...

 

[7.29.80]

Lol..I can understand that...I like your tag line

But, I guess it's like this...if you watched Star Trek and thought, yeah, them talking to their computers and having it respond is silly or will never happen then Siri may not seem as cool. But if you watched Star Trek and went wow, I can't wait to do that then Siri is exciting.

Like when Scotty was all talking into the mouse "Hello, Computer" and the guy took it from him and Scotty was all "How quaint" or something to that extent.

 

[StoneSoup]

because i don't want to spend 30 minutes trying to type on the iphone with my stubby fingers.

 

[gloomcookie1]

Indeed. I think the point is - that some want to argue that this technology hasn't existed or that this is new and only because of Apple. Partly true. As I said above - Apple integrated the technology making it convenient and more readily available.

I think they go about it the wrong way and are trying to quickly argue the same people that say this is in Android/WP7 when it's really not...doing a search in a browser or even dictation are much different that what Siri is as a whole.

 

[born4sky]

hands free texting, reminder while driving... etc. Probably is the best part of it.

If it could recognize it's name without pressing any buttons that would be amazing...

 

[gloomcookie1]

hands free texting, reminder while driving... etc. Probably is the best part of it.

If it could recognize it's name without pressing any buttons that would be amazing...

It can - if you look at the macworld video review Jason Snell is able to say text Dan - Siri replies with which Dan (Dan Frakes, etc, etc.) - he says Dan Frakes and then continues on with the message.

 

[samcraig]

I think they go about it the wrong way and are trying to quickly argue the same people that say this is in Android/WP7 when it's really not...doing a search in a browser or even dictation are much different that what Siri is as a whole.

Point is - Siri was "all that" before Apple bought them. I'm not saying Apple didn't enhance capabilities. I - and what others are saying (I believe) is that the "magic" lies in that Siri has been INTEGRATED into the iOS. Something that wasn't done before and therefor lacking.

It wasn't that Siri COULDN'T do everything before - it could... but Apple prevented it - or at least provided stumbling blocks.

 

[kdarling]

I think they go about it the wrong way and are trying to quickly argue the same people that say this is in Android/WP7 when it's really not...doing a search in a browser or even dictation are much different that what Siri is as a whole.

That's correct: Android doesn't have an interactive assistant yet.

Voice is highly integrated in Android, and its voice activated navigation and search are very useful. There's also at least one Android voice helper that allows asking about weather, or spelling / defining / translating words, where the nearest coffee is, enabling WiFi or BT, changing screen brightness, launching apps, asking Wolfram or Wikipedia, and so forth (the Edwin app).

However, three things are lacking: a larger more AI-like request-response list, being able to set equivalences with the keyword "is", and more integration with target services like OpenTable.

I don't normally like making predictions of the future, but I think this one is easy: Google will release something similar and more integrated between apps (due to Android's inherent tendency for that, versus Apple's sandbox approach).

I think it's all wonderful. Now if only someone could get it working all the time, and with others around. (I have a kitchen computer that I once enabled with constant voice recognition... you could alert it by name and it would respond... but it was pitifully useless if anyone else was in the room talking.)

 

[gloomcookie1]

Point is - Siri was "all that" before Apple bought them. I'm not saying Apple didn't enhance capabilities. I - and what others are saying (I believe) is that the "magic" lies in that Siri has been INTEGRATED into the iOS. Something that wasn't done before and therefor lacking.

It wasn't that Siri COULDN'T do everything before - it could... but Apple prevented it - or at least provided stumbling blocks.

I'll go with that...and even go further to say that right now there are some things that the Siri app did that Siri doesn't do now, such as table reservations...

Still doesn't make the integration the way that it is any less cool though either and something that no other phone mfg. or software vendor currently has as well.

 

[gloomcookie1]

That's correct: Android doesn't have an interactive assistant yet.

Voice is highly integrated in Android, and its voice activated navigation and search are very useful. There's also at least one Android voice helper that allows asking about weather, or spelling / defining / translating words, where the nearest coffee is, enabling WiFi or BT, changing screen brightness, launching apps, asking Wolfram or Wikipedia, and so forth (the Edwin app).

However, three things are lacking: a larger more AI-like request-response list, being able to set equivalences with the keyword "is", and more integration with target services like OpenTable.

I don't normally like making predictions of the future, but I think this one is easy: Google will release something similar and more integrated between apps (due to Android's inherent tendency for that, versus Apple's sandbox approach).

I think it's all wonderful. Now if only someone could get it working all the time, and with others around. (I have a kitchen computer that I once enabled with constant voice recognition... you could alert it by name and it would respond... but it was pitifully useless if anyone else was in the room talking.)

I completely agree...and definitely not saying the voice search or dictation isn't highly useful - and Android as well as WP7 definitely did great things with it. Although in both of those examples it's still going out to a browser. Now Siri does the same thing although I think the general idea down the road is that you won't need to go out to a browser at all - but again, that's down the road. And I can't believe that either Google or Microsoft don't want you to go out to the browser since that's where their bread and butter is, not Microsoft so much but definitely Google. Is it in Google's best interest to not search through the browser?

And from what I've been reading the mic in the iPhone 4S does an excellent job even in a crowded place of picking up your voice - I saw once video in an Apple store that picked up the questions with no problems and you could hear the background noise.

I think each company pushes each other and the tech is just going to keep getting cooler...I'm just glad to be alive during all this innovation!

 

[kdarling]

I completely agree...and definitely not saying the voice search or dictation isn't highly useful - and Android as well as WP7 definitely did great things with it. Although in both of those examples it's still going out to a browser.

Right, natively Android goes to Google's website. Again, the Edwin app is more Siri like in that it is a powerful standalone tool. This video of it is a year old (it does more now, like searching WolframAlpha and printing its answer on the screen as well as sayin it), but it shows how easy it would be to create a more Siri-like app on Android.

Is it in Google's best interest to not search through the browser?

You bring up a very good point. It seems that Google would want to reply with ads as well.

(I've been trying to decide all morning whether Apple was paying or collecting access fees with Open Table, Yelp etc for Siri. As with Google, it would be so Apple-like to approach Siri as a revenue stream.)

I think each company pushes each other and the tech is just going to keep getting cooler...I'm just glad to be alive during all this innovation!

Yep, and none too soon. A lot of this was in place 25 years ago, and then progress stagnated for a long time.

Here's another one of my I-hate-to-do-it predictions: one of the first addons will be the ability to command the lights and media devices around your home.

The only trouble with putting all this stuff on the phone? You'd have to carry the damn thing around with you everywhere you go, even at home. I'd much prefer a house computer with mikes everywhere instead.

 

[realchimera]

Siri is an awesome app. It's still under development though. Maybe after a few years, you can say "Which dumb ass said Siri was useless on MacRumors" to you iphone, and it will find you all the dumb asses on this forum, but not only in this thread.

 

[whooleytoo]

Siri is an awesome app. It's still under development though. Maybe after a few years, you can say "Which dumb ass said Siri was useless on MacRumors" to you iphone, and it will find you all the dumb asses on this forum, but not only in this thread.

Interesting. How much time have you spent using Siri?

 

[AIP5]

I asked Siri your question, and it replied "42."

So, there you go. The point of Siri is 42.