Siri's benefits and impact on the market is revolutionary in that it reaches the personal human needs, and allows a person to mega-multi task. Siri acts as a travelling Google search engine, becomes your personal assistant, your companion, or even save your life with the abilities and scope that it can perform.
I can hear it now:
- Siri is a personal assistant - Siri, remind me to take the rubbish out, or turn the bath water off in ten minutes,
- Siri is a life saver - Siri, remind me to take my medication at 830 hours, 1230 hours, 1600 hours, and 2030 hours, or remind me to take the roast out of the oven in 50 minutes,
- Siri is a companion - Siri, convert 3 cups of sugar to tablespoons, or tell my son to tidy up after himself,
- Siri is a media player - Siri, play Willy Moon for me.......
"You can ask Siri to make a call, find a business and get directions, schedule reminders and meetings, search the web, and more. You can even ask Siri “What can you do for me?” or tap the “i” in the right corner of the screen when you bring Siri up. You’ll see examples of things Siri can do, along with ways you can ask for things. Siri works with almost all your built-in apps. And it’s smart enough to figure out which apps to use to provide you with answers. It also uses Search and Location Services to help you with your requests. Here’s a list of apps and services that Siri works with worldwide:
Maps
Sports
Movies
Local Search
Post on Facebook
FaceTime
Phone
Mail
Web Search
Send a Tweet
App Launch
Find My Friends
Music
Messages
Calendar
Reminders
Notes
Contacts
Weather
Stocks
Wikipedia search
Alarms, World Clock and Timer
Wolfram|Alpha(English only)
Cited from http://www.apple.com/ios/siri/siri-faq/ (retrieved October 8, 2012).
On the downside, prior to purchase, there are some risks and limitations that must be taken into account, such as:
On the downside, prior to purchase, there are some risks and limitations that must be taken into account, such as:
- Because I live in a rural area of New Zealand, every store is known to myself within a 50km radius. Anything farther than that is not worth my time. As Samuel L Jackson portrays in this advertisement, his search for organic mushrooms returns a response of an organic vegetable store in his immediate location http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqXGWQhowXk. My response for an organic grocery store would be non existent for a person living in hicktown Wellsford.
- There are some language problems adapting Siri to New Zealand terminology. For instance, searching for the local marae in Whakatane might prove troublesome (retrieved 29 July, 2012 from http://www.iphonewzealand.co.nz/).
- If you've talked to someone for the first time and you wish to add them to your contacts, it will not do that (retrieved October 8, 2012 from http://www.wtop.com/774/2608903/The-pros-and-cons-of-Siri).
- WTOP'S Greg Stebben reported (October 27, 2011) a large number of faults with Siri (retrieved October 8, 2012 from http://www.wtop.com/774/2608903/The-pros-and-cons-of-Siri). For example, that Siri has alot of downtime, reportedly having troubles reaching the internet. Siri without the internet is non-existent. Siri is an internet based application and internet downtime makes Siri futile.
- Stebben contends that Siri works best on the latest iPhone 4s, as it requires a very, very powerful processor. If it is available for use on other less powerful iPhones, it will be a 'watered down version,' that is not as effective. Additionally, Siri is geared for apple, not android. This has impacted on Siri's marketplace leaving it open for its competitors. Android has developed a just as effective, even better version of Siri, called 'Vlingo,' which works on later model Androids. Vlingo is more effective in the way that you can send a text message without touching the keypad, and is most useful for those who are driving, "... if you're an office worker, or driving, that's very, very powerful because you never even have to lift your hands off the keyboard or what else you're doing to accomplish a task...." In addition, Vlingo is also compatible with the iPhone, but functionally works best with Android.
Overall, I look forward to seeing these hiccups resolved in the near future as modifications, newer, faster and better applications are emerging. Watch this space for a Vlingo update or even some other voice driven application review.
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