It’s amazing how dependent a society can become on gadget that a decade ago they probably wouldn’t even have believed would exist, yet here we are- the generation that can’t get their head out of their apps…. And relies far too heavily on a pocket computer and a stranger named Siri that I must say has quite the sense of humor.
Have you ever forgotten your smart phone at home or at work? Were you able to survive the entire day/night without it, or did you find yourself fidgety, and anxious to retrieve it? Whether it be email communications, Facebook status updates from your new grandchild, or google maps directing you around unknown terrain, it’s pretty impressive how smart the smart phone really is.
Did you read recently about the teen who used Siri to save his life? A simple voice command prompted the telephone to contact Emergency Responders, and they were able to locate the man and come to his rescue in time.
So how smart is Siri? According to Apple’s own site about Siri, “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.” Once you take a look at this list (it’s actually pretty much complete, despite the “does so much” marketing line) you start to realize that Siri’s architecture can be broken down quite easily and it is not as smart as some make it out to be.
Disappointed? Don’t be. The article also goes on to explain that once Siri has determined what you are wanting her to do (or returned a cynical comment at your crude joke), it is a simple step to perform the action through one of the APIs that it has access to. It is the number of on-device APIs that Siri has access to (that nobody else does) and the number of clever web services it can connect through to get you answers that sets it apart and makes it seem much cleverer than it really is to the end user. Which honestly, still seems pretty clever.
Has Siri ever come to your rescue? If so, you join the millions of other users who rely heavily on her. It turns out the top ten things people rely on Siri to do, are as follows: -Send Quick Text Messages -Get Directions -Set Alarms and Timers -Create Reminders -Call People -Get Info from your phone -Calendar Queries -Look up the time and weather -Search the Web -Simple commands
Pretty Interesting huh? Well while you may be impressed, nothing tops this Apple Fans dedication to all things “smart phone”….
