First Look: Using iPhone 4S with Siri voice assistant

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  • Reply 101 of 219
    conradjoeconradjoe Posts: 1,887member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    No, but that's why there are two microphones on the iPhone, I thought.



    If it won't work without a headset, it is DOA.
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  • Reply 102 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by redhanded View Post


    I tried email body text of "meet me at the swan for 9:30 PM," and got "meet me at the 14 9:30PM" (that confused me until I realised 14 was "one four" rather than "fourteen"...)



    "Wales" (the country) is a tough one and I was expecting something like "Whales" (the sea mammal) rather than "Wheels". siri obviously doesn't follow the rugby world cup.



    I've tried all of my local drinking haunts and got 100% failure on "Tabard", unsurprisingly siri thinks I was talking about iPads and translated it as "Tablet". "The Raven" worked most of the time except for a few "Rhythms" but siri's favourite pub in West London is "The Duchess of Cambridge" which was 100% correct.



    Have you tried Siri "The name of my favorite pub is The Swan".







    I told Siri: "You can call me the swan"



    Siri responded: "From now on I'll call you the swan, OK?"



    I replied: "yes"



    And Siri updated my contact entry:



    Later, I asked Siri: "What's my name"



    Siri responded: "You're The Swan. That's what you told me, anyway.



    In a similar way you can tell Siri who your relatives are...
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  • Reply 103 of 219
    conradjoeconradjoe Posts: 1,887member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post


    Have you tried Siri "The name of my favorite pub is The Swan".







    I told Siri: "You can call me the swan"



    Siri responded: "From now on I'll call you the swan, OK?"



    I replied: "yes"



    And Siri updated my contact entry:



    Later, I asked Siri: "What's my name"



    Siri responded: "You're The Swan. That's what you told me, anyway.



    In a similar way you can tell who your relatives are...





    That is impressive. Very, very cool.



    Maybe the Ai is way cool, but the voice recognition is the same as always like on other systems?
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  • Reply 104 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lukei View Post


    So in conclusion Siri doesn't work very well, should not be a primary selling feature as in Beta still and is basically a novelty that will wear off soon enough.



    Controversial maybe but let's get real here



    Yeah, let's get real here...



    Quote:

    On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright piloted the first powered airplane 20 feet above a wind-swept beach in North Carolina. The flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. Three more flights were made that day with Orville's brother Wilbur piloting the record flight lasting 59 seconds over a distance of 852 feet.



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  • Reply 105 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ConradJoe View Post


    Everyone would, and nobody would complain.



    I, and most of the staff here with iPhones, want a bigger screen, ONLY if the overall size of the iPhone stay the same. Its not just the "Levi 501" peeps, its us who carry the phone all the time, even weekends and evenings, when we have no bags . jackets etc



    same width, height, but thinner with a slightly larger screen - yay
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  • Reply 106 of 219
    muppetrymuppetry Posts: 3,331member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ConradJoe View Post


    People will buy the i4s despite the small screen.



    Have to question that one. What makes you think it is selling "despite the small screen"? You've been following these discussions enough to have seen that many people prefer the current size.
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  • Reply 107 of 219
    muppetrymuppetry Posts: 3,331member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ConradJoe View Post


    Siri may not be ready for Prime Time. Wonder why Apple made a front and center feature of it, rather than introduce it as an also-ran, given it is Beta.



    Maybe, but I'd give it a bit more time for things to settle down - then we'll see what the verdict is. I'm not sure that it's necessarily in beta because of the software itself.
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  • Reply 108 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nospam2me View Post


    All of a sudden this morning Siri is not working on my iphone 4S. WTF? That expensive new datacenter in NC can't handle the 1 million preorders + however many first day sales? This doesn't bode well given RIM had recent outage and people were moving from BlackBerry to iPhone. Hope this isn't true...



    At 8:40am EST this morning, Siri would not respond. Constantly received this respone, "Uh oh, there's a problem. Can you try again?"



    Just think if the Siri beta hadn't been limited to the 4 million iPhone 4Ses sold this weekend... and 100 million iP4s, Touches and iPads had hit Apple's servers and the Internet.



    It's as if the servers were trying to take a drink out of a fire hose.





    Someone once tried to come up with a a way to predict what would happen in scenario similar to this sort concentrated activity...





    Something like: "What would happen if ten's of millions of concurrent requests were made for the same web site?"



    After, consideration, the best answer they could come up with was: "It would be like all the urinals in New York City flushing at the same time!"





    The prediction was: "Not to worry -- you'll be up to your ears in piss, first!"



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  • Reply 109 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jacksons View Post


    You do realize that WP7 automatically send its request to Bing if it is not a phone command, right?



    Now go to Bing and type in all those Siri questions and see what happens...



    Find bars in London

    weather in paris

    How many ounces in a pound

    Square root of 345



    I am not saying it will do the "siri personality" questions... but go ahead... try it... you may surprise yourself.



    Note: I still don't understand why I would want to say to my phone: "Is it sunny in Paris or should I bring an umbrella?" when I can simply say "Paris weather" and get the same answer.



    Why do you bring up Bing? It's a really odd choice. Everyone's using the Googles...even Google haters like me are using Google.
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  • Reply 110 of 219
    Some overall thoughts on Siri...



    (That's what this thread is about in spite of many attempts to hijack it... Mango, Screen Size... why not bring in the iPod HiFi, The Newton...)





    Siri has some obvious problems -- some are inherent and others are due to server/bandwidth overloads, our unfamiliarity with the device, the device unfamiliar with our voice...





    I think Siri will be the biggest technology accomplishment under Steve's watch!





    And, yeah, the ripples created by Siri are much bigger than Apple or any single company.





    Bringing Siri out now, it will excite, frustrate, motivate millions of iDevice users.



    We will all learn, together, what Siri can, and can't do for us -- and both Siri and our lives will be improved:



    1) The bandwidth/server power/iDevice power/performance issues can largely be resolved, over time, by throwing hardware at them.



    2) The inaccuracies, missing capabilities can largely be resolved through better software (larger databases, etc.) running on that faster/better hardware.



    3) When Siri exits beta, I suspect that Apple will open the APIs to 3rd-party developers -- and a million flowers will bloom...



    4) Apple does not need to limit Siri [only] to the vagaries of the Internet.



    5) I suspect that Apple will find a way to package and license Siri for in-house use by enterprise at local WiFi or Wired connection (Thunderbolt) speeds.





    Just think of what Siri could do with data analysis and metadata within the enterprise -- going to the Internet for supplemental knowledge, when required.





    If "necessity is the mother of invention"... then Apple has just placed a whole lot of need in the hands of about 4 million people...





    We've all got a lot of work to do!





    Thanks Steve.
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  • Reply 111 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post


    Why do you bring up Bing? It's a really odd choice. Everyone's using the Googles...even Google haters like me are using Google.



    Somebody on another thread suggested that you could use Siri to Bing Alicia Keys.
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  • Reply 112 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post


    Why do you bring up Bing? It's a really odd choice. Everyone's using the Googles...even Google haters like me are using Google.



    Good one
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  • Reply 113 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by muppetry View Post


    Have to question that one. What makes you think it is selling "despite the small screen"? You've been following these discussions enough to have seen that many people prefer the current size.



    The phenomena is sometimes called "the vocal minority:" the 93% of customers excitedly stand in line for a new iPhone, and some slice of the rest complain on Internet forums about their pet peeves. Small minds are incapable of grasping that anyone would disagree with them. What follows is inevitably a flow of rhetoric.
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  • Reply 114 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post


    Somebody on another thread suggested that you could use Siri to Bing Alicia Keys.



    I can think of another verb I would do with Alicia Keys, and it ain't google.
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  • Reply 115 of 219
    My wife and I got our 4S's today... and Siri is unbelievable. We've both used it quite a bit, mostly for sending texts and looking up a few quick things and it's obvious that it's a game changer.



    Beyond the normal Siri stuff, the text dictation into any text box is flawless. Much faster than typing. It is almost 100% perfect... and that's what makes the difference. If it wasn't perfect no one would use it.



    I really think that once people see what can be done with Siri and the way you interact with it they will really see the power in what apple has done here.
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  • Reply 116 of 219
    On the topic of using headsets. My wife and I drove around all morning using Siri in the car with the normal built in mic on our 4S's and Siri was perfect. It's text to speech capabilities are amazing, even with background noise.



    We also tried the "lift to ear" Siri activation quite a bit... and that similarly worked great. I love how when in that mode Siri will read back your text message to you so you can confirm the message before you send it without having to take your eyes off the road. Really nice touch.



    Honestly, I can't understand any complaints about Siri's text-to-speech capabilities. They are spot on. My wife sat around all afternoon sending texts to her family using Siri (and the speech-to-text into a text box stuff... can we really call that Siri?) and she is completely sold that this is the future. Things like "Tell my wife I'm on my way home" are so short and simple to achieve that it really makes you wonder how we've lived without this for so long.



    Now, Siri certainly has shortcomings in what it can do... but as others have mentioned that will change over time.



    For now, just use Siri for what it's good at... and get a glimpse at the future of computing.
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  • Reply 117 of 219
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by friedmud View Post


    On the topic of using headsets. My wife and I drove around all morning using Siri in the car with the normal built in mic on our 4S's and Siri was perfect. It's text to speech capabilities are amazing, even with background noise.



    We also tried the "lift to ear" Siri activation quite a bit... and that similarly worked great. I love how when in that mode Siri will read back your text message to you so you can confirm the message before you send it without having to take your eyes off the road. Really nice touch.



    Honestly, I can't understand any complaints about Siri's text-to-speech capabilities. They are spot on. My wife sat around all afternoon sending texts to her family using Siri (and the speech-to-text into a text box stuff... can we really call that Siri?) and she is completely sold that this is the future. Things like "Tell my wife I'm on my way home" are so short and simple to achieve that it really makes you wonder how we've lived without this for so long.



    Now, Siri certainly has shortcomings in what it can do... but as others have mentioned that will change over time.



    For now, just use Siri for what it's good at... and get a glimpse at the future of computing.



    Bar tricks! Ask her what the best phone is or tell her you need to hide a body. The answers are hilarious.
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  • Reply 118 of 219
    conradjoeconradjoe Posts: 1,887member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Right_said_fred View Post


    I, and most of the staff here with iPhones, want a bigger screen, ONLY if the overall size of the iPhone stay the same. Its not just the "Levi 501" peeps, its us who carry the phone all the time, even weekends and evenings, when we have no bags . jackets etc



    same width, height, but thinner with a slightly larger screen - yay



    If it were just a little bit wider and maybe a tiny bit thinner, you'd buy it.
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  • Reply 119 of 219
    conradjoeconradjoe Posts: 1,887member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by muppetry View Post


    Have to question that one. What makes you think it is selling "despite the small screen"? You've been following these discussions enough to have seen that many people prefer the current size.



    It is selling like hotcakes. It has a small screen.



    Nobody knows what affect the small screen is having on sales.
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  • Reply 120 of 219
    conradjoeconradjoe Posts: 1,887member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post


    Some overall thoughts on Siri...







    I think Siri will be the biggest technology accomplishment under Steve's watch!










    Remember FireFly? (was that really its name?) The one that you called up on the phone, and it was supposed to be your digital Personal Assistant? Back in the late 1990's?



    That was going to be The Next Big Thing as soon as they got the bugs out of it, way back when voice recognition was all set to be the next big thing. But they never got the bugs out of it. Or something.



    It remains to be seen whether this tech works well enough for most people to actually use it.
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