Apple’s Siri Could Revolutionize How Users Interact With Their Smartphones
Apple’s recent release of Siri, the intelligent virtual
personal assistant for the iPhone 4S, may signify an important shift in how
users interact with their mobile devices and further solidify the company’s
leading edge in the smartphone industry.
What does Siri do?
Siri is a voice command system that allows users to sends
texts, find information and set up reminders via speech, but it also does something
much more revolutionary: it attempts to understand the user.
If you ask Siri “Are there any good Cuban restaurants
nearby?” she (Siri’s voice is female) will provide you with a list, organized
by rating. If you then turn around and ask “How about French?” she’ll give you
a list of French restaurants nearby, understanding that you are still talking
about restaurants.
You could then ask Siri to book you a table at La Palette at
7 pm with Dad, and she’d do so. Then say, “send him an email reminder also,”
and Siri will know you are still talking about dinner with your father and will
send a message accordingly.
And Siri only gets smarter; as she gets to know more about
your habits, contacts, schedules and interests, she becomes more efficient. Siri
is different from other voice command systems because she learns, because she is
contextual and personalized.
She’s Funny, Too.
Yes, Siri might even make you laugh. If you ask Siri “to open
the pod bay doors,” she understands this is a reference to HAL, the evil supercomputer
from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and
will reply with something like, “We intelligent agents will never live that
down, apparently.”
How Siri could change
the way people think of smartphones:
Although reviewers have made it clear Siri still has some
glitches (she does mishear or misunderstand at times, for example,) the
application hints at the remarkable possibilities for the future and represents
an important shift to more personalized and efficient service from smartphones,
making them even more indispensable to the user.
Siri and Google:
Since Siri’s release there has also been some speculation on
the effect the application will have on Google. If Siri is a more intelligent
and personalized search engine, does this mean it will ultimately kill Google? If
a user can search for a nearby restaurant via the application, then book a
reservation on OpenTable through it, who’s going to use Google anymore?
Other experts have been quick to point out the unlikelihood that
Siri will cause Google’s demise. First of all, Apple will surely not license
Siri to other smartphone manufacturers, meaning only iPhone users would
potentially stop using Google, not a large enough portion of the market to do
fatal damage. In addition, Siri and Google’s functionality do not overlap
entirely. Most importantly, though, is
that fact that it sill remains to be seen whether Siri will become a widely
used, well-loved application essential to the iPhone user’s experience, or
simply a flash-in-the-pan gimmick users never really warm up to.
Learning
