OK, I had my fun with Siri last week testing the limits of its Australian accent recognition. Time to get down to more serious work — what can you actually use Siri for?
Siri’s a voice system with some attitude, and it’s certainly one you can have a certain amount of fun with — although I’d suggest working out what’s actually acceptable in public places in terms of talking to your smartphone first.
That aside, what can you actually use Siri for? I’ve highlighted some of the basics, some of the hidden tweaks and how you can opt to make Siri locked down and secure or totally open.
There’s still no explicit word on when exactly Siri will get local navigation features; when I met with Apple representatives on Friday they said there was no announced plans, although Apple’s own Siri FAQ suggests that
Maps and local search support will be available in additional countries in 2012.
brent3000
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 10:57 AMIMO its a novelty of for hands free in cars…
I dont use my WP& voice features much as i prefer to type my messages..
Used the Speech to SMS when mango first came out, but still prefer standard texting…
That and if prefer not to voice my texts in public :/
brent3000
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 10:58 AMWP& = WP7 :) Need to learn to let go of the Shift key :P
Ando
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 11:13 AMSIRI, a-Huh yeah.
What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!
bleh
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 12:19 PMgreat minds think alike :)
now I have it stuck in my head :’(
ymala1
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 4:56 PMGreat minds and all that…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41cJUliIuH0&feature=related
glennc
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 11:21 AMNO MORE SIRI
Will
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 11:22 AMwhy doesn’t my 3GS have the option to have 1 or 4 hours before the pass code is required. The longest I have is 15 mins, but I would prefer about 30mins.
Alex
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 12:07 PMworking in a open space office you get to listen to all the phone conversations … now I get all the SMS ‘typing’ sh!t ….
MDolley
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 12:37 PMIt’s easy to be unimpressed by the concept of Siri, but it really is cool. The two killer features of Siri are
A) Wolfram Alpha. We just did a test in the office here and she successfully added 13 numbers each with 4 or 5 digits. You can read maths and Siri will do it no problem.
B) Context. Being able to say things like “Change my 5:30 alarm to 7:30″ is awesome. It can look through your alarms and find what you want changed and do it. You can also do things like “Read the email Bob sent me yesterday”.
z3d
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 1:06 PMi’ve only had my phone for a day, but i’m using it to voice dial. i’ve never had much luck with it in the past because it’s usually a pain but siri seems to understand really well. i like that you can just say, “call my wife/dad/mum etc”. also i found in the contacts, you can also add a field “nick name”. siri doesn’t swear, but “knob head” works. this is probably useful to add aliases.
smurfydog
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 6:16 PM“also i found in the contacts, you can also add a field “nick name”. siri doesn’t swear, but “knob head” works. this is probably useful to add aliases.”
This is one of my favourite tips about using Siri that I’ve read so far! Will make natural speech recognition SO much more natural!
I won’t have a Siri-enabled phone for nearly a year (unless Apple release it for iP4) but I’m just itching to tell my phone to call “Knob-Head” and it works!
Snozza
Sunday, October 23, 2011 at 12:07 AMBelieve me, Siri DOES swear, and quite clearly too
Mike
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 3:21 PMI equate this to someone hard of hearing though. I love my uncle, but I don’t like talking to him over the phone lol.
If you wanna repeat what you said again and again, be my guest! Nice when it works sure, but as that video demonstrates it just doesn’t get it right enough. That’s not just a SIRI problem though, it’s prevalent on *any* voice recog system.
Curtis
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 4:20 PMOMG i don’t know how many people have to say this. SIRI IS IN BETA…. BETA BETA BETA.
If it comes out of BETA and is still making lots of mistakes than rag on it but until then shut up cause SIRI i in BETA
ymala1
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 4:59 PMSiri has been released, released, released. Whether it’s on beta or not, it’s been released to the public on a mainstream device, ragging on it is valid.
I think what Siri does is impressive, but to say that faults shouldn’t be pointed out because it’s in ‘beta’ is stupid.
Gabriel
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 3:40 PMCan someone wake me up when Windows 8 is here please?
MDolley
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 3:44 PMSiri can! She is great at making appointments.
smurfydog
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 6:17 PMComment of the day!
moloko
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 12:24 AMYeah siri is totally in beta LOL
Snozza
Sunday, October 23, 2011 at 12:06 AMBecause Siri uses your contacts list, I set up ‘fake contacts’ creating whole statements as the first name. Then, when letting a friend try it out, I suggest they ask for the weather, then perhaps send a text message, maybe follow that with a reminder. By this time they are totally in love with Siri !
Finally, I tell then to ask “Who am I” ?
Naturally, Siri replies with “You’re (insert hilarious text here).
Needless to say, I can’t write ANY of the actual set-ups on here but let your imagination run wild :)