What do you think about a dedicated Siri button?

mysterioustko said:
That isn't new technology at all. Voice controls have been around for years and have worked well for years. When I want to call a business it's faster for me to just say "Call Best Buy" than to look it up in an app and then call it. It's faster for me to say "navigate to best buy" and have my phone turn into a gps and guide me to Best Buy than for me to open an app, look up Best Buy, then navigate to it. It's a useful technology but it's hardly new.
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Look at the difference between Siri and regular Voice Control - the latter, which has been around for years, only accepts a few static phrases and has a high failure rate.

Siri, however, has been engineered to interpret natural, speaking language and works very well on a variety of different levels. At its base, this is a similar product, but it is far more advanced than its predecessor. I'd very much call it "new" technology in that respect.

Coming from a software developer who lives for this kind of stuff - I want to specialize in developing software to improve human-computer interaction.
 
I think people need to keep in mind that the time to activate Siri is dramatically shorter than Voice Control. It;s like 1.5 seconds to siri. On the 3GS it seems like it take 5-7 seconds for voice control to respond.
 
LagFighter said:
Look at the difference between Siri and regular Voice Control - the latter, which has been around for years, only accepts a few static phrases and has a high failure rate.

Siri, however, has been engineered to interpret natural, speaking language and works very well on a variety of different levels. At its base, this is a similar product, but it is far more advanced than its predecessor. I'd very much call it "new" technology in that respect.

Coming from a software developer who lives for this kind of stuff - I want to specialize in developing software to improve human-computer interaction.
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I'm not sure what voice control you're referring to, but the one I'm referring to does not have a high failure rate. It's actually pretty accurate. It learns your speech patterns and stores your speech patterns in your account in the cloud, so the more you use it the more accurate it gets. Yes Siri does have some additional commands but I'd hardly call it new technology.
 
Chaos123x said:
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I'm totally stoked for voice control. But have been burned way too many times to believe it again.
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Well, consider Siri as the acid test for voice control mass adoption with general consumers.
If Apple fail in nailing this, then we might as well forget about it ever being adopted in the mainstream.
 
Chaos123x said:
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Why not a button for the camera a button.
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there is a "hardware" button being used for the camera now, it's called the volume up button.
 
Chaos123x said:
Are you from the future? :confused::eek::confused:
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Have you not used an Android phone in the last 2 years? The only thing new about Siri is it's somewhat novel ability to seem sentient.

Because you can try and hold a conversation with it. Kinda. But android has been doing this for a long time now.
 
Chaos123x said:
Are you from the future? :confused::eek::confused:
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He's just been using an Android phone.

Not only does stock Android have voice search and navigation, but throw in the free Edwin voice app (Lifehacker article/video here) and you can do a lot of what Siri does without any AI at all... and sometimes more, like controlling Bluetooth or doing translations.

(That Edwin video is a year old. Now it also displays a very simple text answer on top of the microphone, along with a spoken reponse. It also has automatic fallback to Wolfram Alpha. I suspect that in a very short time the developer will add several Siri-like features.)

Rumor says that Google is about to release their own voice assistant app, above and beyond what's cooked into Android now. It's a fair bet that they'll also allow other apps to become integrated with it via the Android intents system.

Personally, I use Android voice search all the time. Quite often someone will ask a question such as "Who was that actress in that movie?" While others type furiously away on their phones, I just speak the question and have a search response right away.

The future, of course, is not just voice interaction. Devices will recognize us and their surroundings, and watch our expressions and hand motions along with voice and touch input.
 
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What really burns me up, is that Siri is pulling the plug on their app that works on my iPhone 4.

Ive had siri for a long while now, and I am used to using it, but Im not about to spend 600 to have it again.

Very shady move on either Apple, or Siri's part.
 
kdarling said:
He's just been using an Android phone.

Not only does stock Android have voice search and navigation, but throw in the free Edwin voice app (Lifehacker article/video here) and you can do a lot of what Siri does without any AI at all... and sometimes more, like controlling Bluetooth or doing translations.

(That Edwin video is a year old. Now it also displays a very simple text answer on top of the microphone, along with a spoken reponse. It also has automatic fallback to Wolfram Alpha. I suspect that in a very short time the developer will add several Siri-like features.)

Rumor says that Google is about to release their own voice assistant app, above and beyond what's cooked into Android now. It's a fair bet that they'll also allow other apps to become integrated with it via the Android intents system.

Personally, I use Android voice search all the time. Quite often someone will ask a question such as "Who was that actress in that movie?" While others type furiously away on their phones, I just speak the question and have a search response right away.

The future, of course, is not just voice interaction. Devices will recognize us and their surroundings, and watch our expressions and hand motions along with voice and touch input.
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you can do voice search with the google app amongst others on iPhone too. quite fascinated that your general statement discounts Siri in terms of natural speech recognition and AI.

i do agree with your last quote and with competing manufacturers, consumers will benefit. the quote that steve made during the iPhone 4 announcement' "phones that are more aware of our surroundings" struck a chord with me most.

as long as the amazing minds at apple and google keep pushing one another, we'll get into that future faster. i can't wait.
 
Would be cool if they could somehow figure out a way so they don't need a button at all. If phone is active, just have Siri be aware of surroundings, etc. and know when it is being asked a question.
 
truthiness said:
Would be cool if they could somehow figure out a way so they don't need a button at all. If phone is active, just have Siri be aware of surroundings, etc. and know when it is being asked a question.
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And what happens at the coffee shop, the phone's on the table and I'm talking to friends?
 
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