According to Apple,
“Siri on iPhone 4S lets you use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, and more. Ask Siri to do things just by talking the way you talk. Siri understands what you say, knows what you mean, and even talks back. Siri is so easy to use and does so much, you’ll keep finding more and more ways to use it.”
It understands what you say.
Talk to Siri as you would to a person. Say something like “Tell my wife I’m running late.” “Remind me to call the vet.” “Any good burger joints around here?” Siri does what you say, finds the information you need, then answers you. It’s like you’re having a conversation with your iPhone.
Talk to Siri as you would to a person. Say something like “Tell my wife I’m running late.” “Remind me to call the vet.” “Any good burger joints around here?” Siri does what you say, finds the information you need, then answers you. It’s like you’re having a conversation with your iPhone.
It knows what you mean.
Siri not only understands what you say, it’s smart enough to know what you mean. So when you ask “Any good burger joints around here?” Siri will reply “I found a number of burger restaurants near you.” Then you can say “Hmm. How about tacos?” Siri remembers that you just asked about restaurants, so it will look for Mexican restaurants in the neighborhood. And Siri is proactive, so it will question you until it finds what you’re looking for.
It helps you do the things you do every day.
Ask Siri to text your dad, remind you to call the dentist, or find directions, and it figures out which apps to use and who you’re talking about. It finds answers for you from the web through sources like Yelp and WolframAlpha. Using Location Services, it looks up where you live, where you work, and where you are. Then it gives you information and the best options based on your current location. From the details in your contacts, it knows your friends, family, boss, and coworkers. So you can tell Siri things like “Text Ryan I’m on my way” or “Remind me to make a dentist appointment when I get to work” or “Call a taxi” and it knows exactly what you mean and what to do.
It has so much to tell you.
When there’s something you need to do, just ask Siri to help you do it. Siri uses almost all the built-in apps on iPhone 4S. It writes and sends email messages and texts. It searches the web for anything you need to know. It plays the songs you want to hear. It gives you directions and shows you around. It places calls, schedules meetings, helps you remember, and wakes you up. In fact, ask Siri what it can do — it even speaks for itself.
What is Siri?
Siri is the intelligent personal assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. It allows you to use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, and more. But Siri isn’t like traditional voice recognition software that requires you to remember keywords and speak specific commands. Siri understands your natural speech, and it asks you questions if it needs more information to complete a task.
Siri uses the processing power of the dual-core A5 chip in iPhone 4S, and it uses 3G and Wi-Fi networks to communicate rapidly with Apple’s data centers. So it can quickly understand what you say and what you’re asking for, then quickly return a response.
Siri is currently in beta and we’ll continue to improve it over time.
Using Siri
How do I ask Siri something?
To talk to Siri, hold down the Home button on your iPhone 4S. You’ll hear two quick beeps and see “What can I help you with?” on the screen. Just begin speaking. The microphone icon lights up to let you know that Siri hears you talking. Once you’ve started a dialogue with Siri, tap the microphone icon to talk to it again.
There’s more than one way to talk to Siri. When the screen is on, simply bring iPhone 4S up to your ear. You’ll hear two quick beeps to indicate that Siri is listening to you.
Siri also works with headphones and Bluetooth headsets. When you’re using headphones with a remote and microphone, you can press and hold the center button to talk to Siri. With a Bluetooth headset, press and hold the call button to bring up Siri.
Siri waits for you to stop talking, but you can also tap the microphone icon to tell Siri you’re done talking. This is useful when there’s a lot of background noise.
What happens after I ask Siri a question or ask it to do something?
When you finish speaking, Siri displays the text of what you said and provides a response. If Siri needs more information to complete a request, it will ask you a question. For example, if you say “Remind me to call my mom,” Siri will ask “What time would you like me to remind you?”
When you use earphones or a headset, Siri reads back text messages and email messages that you’ve dictated before you send them, and it reads back the subjects of reminders before you create them. This is especially helpful when you’re driving and can’t see the iPhone 4S screen.
Do I have to say things a certain way to get Siri to respond?
No. You can speak to Siri as you would to a person — in a natural voice with a conversational tone. If you want to know what the weather will be like tomorrow, simply say “What will the weather be like tomorrow?” Or “Does it look like rain tomorrow?” Or even “Will I need an umbrella tomorrow?” No matter how you ask, Siri will tell you the forecast.
Does Siri work out of the box, or do I have to teach it?
Siri works right out of the box, without any work on your part. And the more you use Siri, the better it will understand you. It does this by learning about your accent and other characteristics of your voice. Siri uses voice recognition algorithms to categorize your voice into one of the dialects or accents it understands. As more people use Siri and it’s exposed to more variations of a language, its overall recognition of dialects and accents will continue to improve, and Siri will work even better.
Siri also uses information from your contacts, music library, calendars, and reminders to better understand what you say. So it responds more accurately when you ask to make a phone call, play music, or create an appointment or reminder.
If you like, you can reset what Siri has learned about your voice by turning Siri off and then back on in Settings > General > Siri.
What Siri Can Do For You
What types of things can I ask Siri about or ask it to do?
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.
How does Siri learn who I am?
If Siri knows who you are, it can use your information to help you. To make sure Siri knows who you are, select your contact information in Settings > General > Siri > My Info.
Your information is used for questions like “How do I get home?” or “What good restaurants are near work?”
How does Siri learn about my key relationships?
Siri also helps you by learning about the key people in your life. The first time you ask Siri to call your sister, it will ask you who your sister is. That information is stored in Contacts along with other relationship information like “mom,” “husband,” and “grandma.”
How do location-based reminders work?
Because Siri knows your current location and other locations like “home” and “work,” it can remind you to do a certain task when you leave a location or arrive at a location. So if you tell Siri,“Remind me to call my wife when I leave the office,” Siri does just that.
To turn off the ability for Siri to use your location, go to Settings > Location Services and set the switch for Siri to Off. Regardless of how Locations Services is set for Siri, information about your location is not tracked or stored outside the phone.
Does iPhone 4S take dictation?
Yes. iPhone 4S supports dictation in any app that has a keyboard. So instead of typing, you can speak and your words will be entered as text.
To start dictation, tap the microphone button on your keyboard and start talking. When you’re finished, tap Done and your words will be turned into text. Dictation for each language is built into the keyboard for that language.
Is Siri accessible to blind and visually impaired users?
Yes. VoiceOver, the screen reader built into iOS, can speak any text that’s displayed in responses from Siri. You can navigate through the responses and have each one read to you. This includes the days of a weather forecast, the body of an email, the details of an answer from Wolfram|Alpha, and more.
Language Support and Availability
Siri works exclusively on iPhone 4S. Siri understands and can speak the following languages:
- English (United States, United Kingdom, Australia)
- French (France)
- German (Germany)
In 2012, Siri will support additional languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish.
Can I use Siri in any of these languages in other countries?
Yes. Siri can be enabled in any country, and you can choose to speak to it in English, French, or German. However, Siri is designed to recognize the specific accents and dialects of the supported countries listed above. Since every language has its own accents and dialects, the accuracy rate will be higher for native speakers.
At this point and time nobody is quite sure how Siri works. However some speculate that all of the information transmitted throught the software is stored. That gathered information in return is able to learn more about how people use it, while initially providing better results. Siri is Apple’s answer to Google ‘Voice Actions,’ which was first rolled out in August, 2010. The bottom line is that Siri is growing as we speak, and personally I cannot wait to see where it will be in a couple years.
Now you are trying to comprehend how in the world does this tech stuff relate to inspiration? Well considering we have never experienced something like this as consumers, this attracted my attention. What better way to tell you about it, than showcasing entertaining outcomes!
Some of the following results that we stumble upon are pretty hilarious. Very crazy to think that a piece of software could have so many outcomes to our questions. If you have an iPhone4S, you can try to ask the following questions and see if you get similar or better results.
Please Note: Some of the following statements might not be safe for a working environment.
As in:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri-faq.html
http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html
http://inspirationfeed.com/inspiration/50-hilarious-things-that-siri-says/