John Gruber of Daring Fireball, testing the Siri voice recognition/command software on the iPhone 4S...



1) LOL at the last line.
2) It's a pity Apple can't get Majel Barrett Roddenberry to do a voice record for them.

Jon

An update to the review

What would happen if BigD was to ask...

"How many people born before the year 1880 are still alive"

I'm wondering what happens if you ask it to make you a nice hot cup of tea.
[/hhgttg]

Jon

I was wondering whether or not to include a [/Red Dwarf] tag at the end of mine.

Would be awesome to have a voice activated activation of Siri.

i.e. "Siri, what time is it?"

Instead of having to press the button first.

I wouldn't be surprised if this happens in the future. Though would people always want Siri (and therefore potentially Apple) listening in on every word?

If you have a Mac, you can switch on voice recognition. You need to start the comment by either holding a key, or saying a keyword, such as “Computer”.

I tried it once. I was hoping I’d feel like I was in Star Trek or something. I just felt like an idiot.

I remember me and friend playing with that on his Performa 5200.
It was awesome, for the time.
You could get the Finder to do all sorts. Very handy, I'd imagine, in certain circumstances.

Yeah, that's my only problem with Siri, I would feel all self-conscious talking to my phone, asking it to do things, especially if other people are around. I don't think most of us British have the confidence to pull it off without sounding like a total dick!! Although, I'm really looking forward to the businessmen shouting instructions into their phones on the train. That'll be fun </sarcasm>

Yes, that's exactly how train journeys are going to sound from now on! Oh joy.

Don't you do that anyway ?
Gruber makes the point that as well as holding down the button, you can activate Siri by raising the phone to your ear the way you would making/receiving a call when you're not in the 'phone' app, so if you're feeling self-conscious just act as if Siri was your secretary on the other end of the phone line...



"Book me a meeting at ten o'clock tomorrow"
<15 'bings' from 15 different phones>
"oh [LIFTED]".

Jon

Reminds me of the "Wildfire" voice recognition service offered by Orange from 2000 - 2005.

They gave up on it due to a declining number of users. I suspect most people really do feel like a bit of a twit asking their phone to organise their appointments.