Apple Reveals Siri Voice Interface: The “Intelligent Assistant”

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/04/apple-reveals-siri-voice-interface-the-intelligent-assistant/

by llambda • 15 years ago

116 173 15 years ago

shoota8• 15 years ago

Not terribly impressive. I wonder how realtime usage will be since all data processing is done in the "cloud".

anigbrowl• 15 years ago

I find Google's version of this pretty zippy and useful, so I'd expect it will be at least as good as that. It's usually a ~5 second turnaround, I'd estimate; I typically use it if I'm walking to catch a bus or suchlike and don't want to slow down or have an accident by typing at the same time.

shoota8• 15 years ago

I think it depends on the carrier as well. Sometimes on my Droid 1 on Verizon it can take a good 10 seconds to get a get a response or 10 seconds to make the initial connection to the server to allow me to start talking.

cryptoz• 15 years ago

Android's voice search also does things in the cloud. It's not bad, actually. I can say, "Email Alex. Subject Hello. Body Hi Alex, how are you [question mark]" and my Xoom will open the gmail app and fill out all the fields in about 3 or 4 seconds.

I imagine Apple will be approximately the same.

ceejayoz2• 15 years ago

I'd imagine they down-sample the audio like crazy. They certainly don't need CD quality sound for it.

gks• 15 years ago

A lot of the rumors seem to indicate that it's an iPhone 4S feature because of processing power requirements. It sounds as though there is a lot of processing happening on the device. It goes to the "cloud" for looking things up that aren't on the device itself. Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha, Weather, etc.

zyb09• 15 years ago

Is it done in the cloud? Why would it require an iPhone 4S then?

shoota8• 15 years ago

Marketing reasons?

untog• 15 years ago

It's good. But it's not that mind-blowing- I expect Google Voice Search to catch up pretty quickly. In the context of Android vs iPhone it's far from a killer blow.

I'm actually more excited about the iPod Nano as a workout device.

shoota8• 15 years ago

I think that its most impressive feature is how well integrated into the device it is. The overall tech isn't very compelling. It's interesting that it isn't running on the device itself for language processing so there is going to be some delay on 3G networks.

microtonal• 15 years ago

I'm actually more excited about the iPod Nano as a workout device.

Indeed, and that the iPod Touch also gets iMessage. Which is nice for messaging with family members that do not have an iPhone.

juliano_q• 15 years ago

I agree. I think it is a pretty cool feature, but far from a killer one. And the specs of device are pretty close from 1 year old Android devices like Atrix. I was hoping for much more.

gdhillon• 15 years ago

Apple is doing more than just the voice search. It is parsing what the user is saying and bringing back exact result or completing that actions. Just like Siri did when you wanted to book a hotel or restaurant.

vogonj6• 15 years ago

this is exactly the same as voice search + "instant actions." there's no line between the two.

moultano• 15 years ago

That already happens for a lot of different verbs on android. "Call" "navigate to" and probably more but those are the only ones I use.

mrbill2• 15 years ago

The "Siri" app on the App Store does a lot of this already (Apple bought the company and integrated the product) for current phones running iOS 4. It's really impressive.

Gormo• 15 years ago

It's been removed from the App Store.

mrbill2• 15 years ago

Wow, that was quick. I installed it this AM.

hsuresh• 15 years ago

I should probably register a site: siribloopers.com. Am sure we are gonna hear lots of stories about misadventures with Siri :)

judofyr• 15 years ago

Someone just registered damnyousiri.com: http://twitter.com/cjno/status/121293035739955201

Urgo• 15 years ago

I got a better name. Are You Sirious? areyousirious.com I thought about registering it but didn't. Feel free to if someone here wants it. If it becomes big you're welcome, remember me :)

danh• 15 years ago

And I can't even imagine what Siri and Wolfram Alpha will cook up together.

kgutteridge• 15 years ago

http://damyousiri.com/ slight mispelling of damn in my excitement, but hey ho its good to go and people to contribute to!

drats2• 15 years ago

This is a minor evolution on the voice capacity I have already been using on my Android for quite some time. Because all of this relies on technology in the cloud Google should have no problem leapfrogging this with weather, booking of flights, news, calendar etc. Also, any future "inter-agent" stuff will be totally broken on Apple, all of their stuff like iChat is a totally walled garden.

For a small subset of people who are all on Apple with their friends all on Apple in some regions of the USA it will work great though.

EDIT: For the down-voters I would just say I actually had a macbook for a few years. iChat is technologically impressive but has near zero value when you can't connect with people. Apple promised to make it widely inter-operative and failed to do so when I was using it. They almost had to be forced to give back contributions to Webkit and open it up fully. They run a closed ship more or less in everything they do, the Apple way or the highway. This voice feature is a thin UI on top of cloud services and interoperability, both of which areas where Google is light-years ahead of Apple (not to mention they have their own social network). Android is already crushing them in sales and Apple virtually doesn't exist outside the West + Japan, tens of millions of upper middle class Indians and Chinese will be using Android eventually. Apple doesn't stand a chance in the long run, which is why they are already resorting to patent suits against superior tablets like the galaxy. It's not a BMW vs a budget car, because 1s and 0s are free the budget car has the luxury seats and trimmings at no extra cost. They are toast.

joebadmo13• 15 years ago

WHAT?? You mean Google copied Apple already? What next, notifications?

[Ha-ha, just some good-natured ribbing, folks, please go easy with the downvotes.]

brador2• 15 years ago

They really needed an iPhone 5 here. Every non-tech I know was waiting for it, now they're just confused. Would have been nice to make a big bang to break in the new guy.

For Siri, how many of us will actually use it day to day in the office or commute?

Personally, I was hoping for a new ipad 3 with retina. Would have been a nice gift for the kids pre-christmas. As it is, I'll be sticking with my iPhone 4 and ipad 1.

guywithabike• 15 years ago

What would an iPhone 5 be, though? Same new innards, different case? The iPhone 4 is a sharp looking piece of hardware. It's not like they need to throw it away just because a few tech nerds want different cases.

ssharp• 15 years ago

> They really needed an iPhone 5 here.

The 4S thing didn't surprise me too much. This keeps consistant with what they did with the 3G -> 3GS transition. For someone like me, who has an iPhone 4, I don't feel the need to upgrade out of contract, but will likely upgrade when the iPhone 5 comes out next year. Doing a major revision every two years makes sense given the way mobile contracts work.

> For Siri, how many of us will actually use it day to day in the office or commute?

I would definitely use it while driving. It's not hard to take a quick glance and read something while driving (I know, it's still bad) but it's significantly harder to try and type something in, which requires a lot more concentration and is much more dangerous. The flip side is that I'd probably use my phone more when driving, which is not good. Maybe it's like the seat belt thing, where the seat belt gave people enough sense of security to drive more recklessly than they had when seat belts were not a requirement for manufacturers.

> Personally, I was hoping for a new ipad 3 with retina.

Given the title of the event, expecting a new iPad was a bit of a stretch!

SomeCallMeTim• 15 years ago

>For Siri, how many of us will actually use it day to day in the office or commute?

My wife has been using voice input on her low-end Android device ($150 with no contract) for months now, and she uses it pretty much every time she needs to navigate somewhere -- it's that good. I've also seen her use it for search -- general search and "Mexican restaurants near me" map search. It's fast, and it's pretty good at understanding what you're saying.

It's a cool feature, but the most compelling use cases are search related -- and Android has those nailed.

brandonb2• 15 years ago

The really unique thing about Siri is the flexible natural language processing. You can say "Meet with Doug for dinner today", and it'll parse out the person/date/subject, realize you didn't specify a time, and ask you "OK, what time would you like to meet him at?" It's just a much more forgiving interface, which makes it more approachable for the average user.

It's actually a very hard technical problem to create software that not only parses the user's intention, but can intelligently prompt for follow-ups. Google has many of the individual pieces of technology, but making it all fit together, with a good interface, is still hard work that takes time. That's probably why it took Apple 1.5 years to go from the Siri acquisition to the announcement today.

cookiecaper• 15 years ago

Have you used Android voice recognition? It's pretty good in terms of recognition. It isn't so proactive as "Go to my calendar and make me money!" but it's quite an adequate little application.

dave16192• 15 years ago

I agree. I think what Apple is releasing in Siri could be bigger than most of us realize. I have several android phones and don't use the voice recognition much because 1 out of every 4 or 5 tries it returns things I didn't mean. That's frustrating. The average user quits after a 20% failure rate. Siri on the iPhone 4s needs to be at 5% or less failure rate, meaning one of every 20 requests returns an error. But then again, if it returns an error at least the user can clarify and continue the conversation. I think Apple just leapfrogged Google in natural language processing and taking it to the masses.

Tichy• 15 years ago

How many things can it really do, though? Are those not some preprogrammed use cases, and for the rest it falls back to Wolfram Alpha, which has been around for years?

Google also has offered "special" search results for a while, such as evaluating calculations or exchange rates on the fly. I don't think what Siri does is more advanced than that. It is a nice touch to integrate it more deeply into the OS, like "get me home" - but then that is also just one button with a popular Android app (Öffi for example).

Google Calendar also does some "real text parsing" afaik.

Can't really think about a more complicated example atm. OK maybe "set up a dinner with Doug and Sandy, where Doug is a vegan and Sandy doesn't like to go farther than 2 km from her home" - can Siri parse that and pick a suitable restaurant?

I need some ideas for birthday presents for my child, can Siri help?

jad• 15 years ago

> They are toast.

Apple earns about 50% of the profit in mobile handsets, a share that is trending upwards.

sek2• 15 years ago

They managed to make a mobile phone a status symbol, but that is more a branding achievement than a technical one. Today i saw a garbage collector (really) with an iPhone, and both of my parents have one. The status symbol fades when everyone has one.

This number is just relevant for apples wallet, but what matters in the long term are market share and being technical superior.

Nokia and RIM had also very neat numbers some years ago.

jcampbell12• 15 years ago

I don't understand your point. Siri is going to fail because Apple is a walled-garden? That makes sense for iMessage, but none for Siri. Are you saying it is going to fail because it doesn't support all languages?

Your edit ends with "They are toast". Seems like obvious flamebait, and is only going to attract more downvotes.

olivercameron• 15 years ago

Oh please, Apple isn't toast. Michael Dell said something similar, and look how that turned out. What good is market share when you are making no money because of it? Apple has it right, they're making way more money than all the other handset companies and are constantly voted #1 in handset satisfaction. What's so wrong with that?

When Android return[1] rates[2] drop below 10%, then we'll talk.

1. http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/26/androids-dirty-secret-shipp...

2. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20030211-37.html

TallTalesOrTrue• 15 years ago

How about windows phone then? Better UI than android more capabilities than iPhone. Comparable low return rates.

Its another thing that People don't know about it because of Microsoft's poor image and marketing.

siglesias• 15 years ago

Toast. I'm kind of shocked that the tenor of your remarks is to instantly pit Apple against Google and that the HN community has decided that it is the most insightful. Apple continues to achieve a level of quality in their products that most of us aspire to as entrepreneurs, and the tech world is better for it. The impulse to belittle them in light of an impressive achievement baffles me.

Android and Siri. Android does well, yes, but Google's financial success has not yet been shown to be correlated with Android shipments (look at the stock performance over the last two years for evidence). In some interesting instances competitors (Baidu and Amazon) have gutted Android to be used against them. Every query that is performed on Siri is routed to services that are NOT search, which is where Google makes its money. Why Google would invest money in implementing mobile services that route computing away from the web is beyond me. It isn't in their interest. Joe Hewitt made this observation before too. So while yes, Google might be technically capable of adding voice assistant, it isn't clear how that leads to increased profits for them. Feature parity is the wrong way to think about the Apple Google relationship.

barista3• 15 years ago

Agree. It beats me why Google has continued to pour so much money in Android with apparently no business plan to recover that. Apple has a completely different business model that lets them recover their investments. But with Androind being free, I don't understand why Google has any motive to do investments. Their shareholders and directors are going to ask this question at some point of time.

It scares me that Google is looking more like the "New Microsoft" scared of everything that everyone does and trying to get their hands at everything.

micampe• 15 years ago

iChat is XMPP.

semanticist• 15 years ago

To expand on this: XMPP is the opposite of a walled-garden. I've used iChat with Google Talk, I've used it with an internal Jabber server, and the 'normal' iChat is AOL IM.

Even the Bonjour chat is open - just XMPP with ZeroConf discovery.

To say that iChat is 'totally walled garden' betrays a deep lack of understanding of the software being discussed.

Kylekramer• 15 years ago

I know that I shouldn't be surprised at this point, but making it a 4S exclusive is one of the more blatant bits of planned obsolescence I've seen. I was running Siri just fine on an 2nd generation iPod touch over two years ago, and looking at the demo, it doesn't seem to be much different, just able to hook into Apple internal APIs.

wvenable• 15 years ago

I'm sure the jail breakers will solve this problem.

0x12• 15 years ago

They shouldn't have to. If there are no technical reasons why this can't work it should.

IanMikutel• 15 years ago

I wrote a post last night (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3069745) analyzing Tom Gruber, Siri's Co-Founder, CTO, and VP of Design, original Siri keynote in 2008.

The post got pretty popular on HN and I had 5 key questions/predictions, feel free to read all the details (and lots of quotes I transcribed straight from Gruber's video) but now I'll summarize my thoughts quickly below:

1. Very few languages for Siri (where's Spanish?)

2. No API announced for developers to add tasks to Siri

3. It's still named...Siri? What happened to Assistant? I guess it is quicker to say in practice...

4. Siri's in BETA? Is this the first time Apple's released a major iPhone feature with a beta sticker?

5. No payments integration with Siri mentioned. Can it buy stuff for me? as Gruber talked about in 2008?

6. No Facebook partnership for social knowledge on Siri, or even iPad app.

mercurio2• 15 years ago

I don't think Siri is in beta. I think only the 'voice dictation for arbitrary text input' feature is in beta.

revorad• 15 years ago

So I guess you're not that fascinated any more, Ian? Maybe now you understand my cynical reactions to your original post :-P

RexRollman• 15 years ago

We won't know this for a little while but there might have been changes made to the software that Apple felt required the extra processing power of the A5. Of course, we won't know for sure until someone jailbrakes and tried it on older hardware.

roc3• 15 years ago

For that matter there may be custom signal processing hardware inside to support Apple's implementation.

Particularly as they did just advertise that they added a custom ISP for the camera. I'd be surprised if they wouldn't go to similar lengths for the voice assistant.

saygt• 15 years ago

It would've been great to see Siri being adopted on multiple platforms. Such a waste!

mercurio2• 15 years ago

It might be that the Siri functionality is tied to the A5 chip. The A5 design is a lot larger than other dual core ARM A9 designs (even after accounting for the larger GPU) and thus has lots of spare silicon to use for specialized circuits. It is possible that Apple added a custom DSP to aid speech recognition.

rev087• 15 years ago

It seems the actual speech recognition happens on a remote server, not in the device itself.

shriphani• 15 years ago

I was just checking the hardware specs on ifixit. Looks like the iPhone4 has 3 microphones in it. So I am guessing they are sending audio from more than 1 mic. I found no such hardware info on the teardown of 3GS and below. Maybe I didn't look hard enough but there does seem to be a hardware-related reason for doing this.

EDIT : I believe > 1 src is needed for fighting noise so you sample the same audio from 2 locations and can distinguish between multiple audio sources in the input signal. This seemed to be one of the selling points of the mic array in the kinect

abuzzooz• 15 years ago

To me it felt like Apple were clinging to straws by touting Siri as a "feature" of iPhone 4S. What was more interesting to me are the thoughts that came to my head. My first thought was of Clippy. My second one was of the McCain/Palin campaign insisting that Alaska's proximity to Russia gives Palin international politics experience. My third thought was that Apple must be smarter than this, or are they?

joebadmo13• 15 years ago

Sounds like it's an evolution over Android's voice stuff, and better integrated. But the tech isn't what stops me from using Android's voice commands, generally. It's that I'm not often enough in a situation to use it without feeling embarrassed (not going to do it at work or out and about, if I'm at home, I'm usually in front of the computer), and I usually forget about the function. Same goes with location reminders. I have an Android app that does them, but I never remember to actually set the reminders, because I don't have frequent enough opportunity to use it.

The car is probably the only place I use voice commands frequently, but I don't drive that much.

And really, aren't the bluetooth headsets a big enough scourge? Do we really need a bunch of people walking around talking to their phones without even having someone on the other end?

jeffclark• 15 years ago

"I don't use it, so nobody will use it."

Slippery slope, man. Easy to forget there are a billion others you haven't met yet.

joebadmo13• 15 years ago

Oh, I wasn't trying to imply that it will fail. Just relating my experience that social norms and robopsychology are bigger hurdles than the technology, imo.

drats2• 15 years ago

I imagine of the ~7 billion people alive today, perhaps 6 billion are not potential Apple customers at all due to price. Quite a few billion are potential low-end Android phone users though. As I said in another comment in this thread it costs to put luxury seats into a cheap car to attempt to catch up to a BMW, it doesn't cost to put a great many features into budget Android phones though.

This is why Apple is starting to use patents, because they actually don't have much when you boil it down. Even an Apple fan would be hard pressed to say Apple is 20% "better" than the latest Android. They will mostly point to a few UI features and say 10% better. I would say Android is easily better than iOS, as do many others, it seems to be largely a matter of taste. The tidal-wave of Android phones will swamp Apple in the end unless they can sue tons of people.

hack_edu• 15 years ago

  Do we really need a bunch of people walking around talking to their phones without even having someone on the other end?

Actually, walking down the street is the speech-to-text situation for me. Sending a quick text or Gtalk reply with voice is a hell of a lot easier and safer than trying to pound one out when I'm in the crosswalk.

joebadmo13• 15 years ago

Maybe I'll give it a shot.

[Edit: I just tried it on my lunch break. Felt very awkward. Different strokes, I guess.]

shoota8• 15 years ago

It actually looks like it has similar capability to Vlingo for Android. Vlingo can do deeper integration into Android due to the intents and permission system making it comparable to Siri.

togasystems• 15 years ago

Wow. Now I might get a lot of naysayers here, but how long do you think before the keyboard becomes a niche product much like how the pen and pencil are becoming? Natural Language is a field that is going to explode.

ChuckMcM2• 15 years ago

See the comment above by Joe. There is a certain 'weirdness' about giving voice commands to a device in public, it feels so strange that people don't do it, and being forced to radically alter their speech tempo/patterns makes it even more uncomfortable for them.

That being said, one 'fix' here is to call your virtual assistant and talk to them on the phone. We do that now with these irritating voice mail type menu trees but at least you are talking to 'someone.' When we get to 'Ironman' level of interactivity it gets more compelling.

Florin_Andrei• 15 years ago

I'm not trying to be funny, but there's nothing weird about characters in Star Trek speaking to the ship's computer.

"Computer, make me a coffee." See? It's okay.

roc3• 15 years ago

> "That being said, one 'fix' here is to call your virtual assistant and talk to them on the phone. "

I'm sure you can hold the iPhone to your ear and pretend that you've dialed up Siri and are talking to them "on the phone".

paganel• 15 years ago

> See the comment above by Joe. There is a certain 'weirdness' about giving voice commands to a device in public, it feels so strange that people don't do it

Especially so if you happen to be Scottish and stuck in an elevator: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FFRoYhTJQQ

losvedir• 15 years ago

I don't exoect the 'weirdness' to be that much of a hang-up. Things that feel awkward take remarkably little time to stop feeling awkward if you just do them a few times[1][2]. And if the pay-off is big enough, as great voice control would be, I think people would be willing to overcome the initial awkward hurdle.

Also, kids are much less set in their ways, and would grow up thinking talking to computers is completely normal and not give a second thought.

[1] Try this: The next time you're standing somewhere with nothing in your hands (maybe in line, or waiting for a bus), just stand up straight, feet parallel, arms hanging by your side. I started doing this and it felt so strange; I badly wanted to put my hands in my pockets, or cross my arms, or shift onto one foot. I have no idea why. But after a day or two of it, now it feels normal, and, in fact, better than it felt to stand with hands in pockets before.

[2] Or try this: If you order something from Starbucks or McDonald's or whatever, mix up your standard phrase. I used to always order, "Can I get a..." and now say "I would like ... please". That, too, was very strange to me, but now feels normal.

So basically, little things can feel awkward, but that goes away with remarkably little experience pushing through the awkwardness.

jawngee• 15 years ago

I dunno if you are old enough to remember this, but there was a certain weirdness to using a cell phone when it first came out.

jaspero• 15 years ago

Naah. You still need to type in public places and don't want everyone to know what you are doing with your phone.

bergie• 15 years ago

That would be the missing link that would make touchscreen devices productive tools. That, or the society becoming less textual.

philwelch• 15 years ago

Do you code? I can't imagine coding by voice.

And even for ordinary writing, the keyboard is the most efficient thought-to-written-language medium invented. Especially when paired with even the most basic text editing features of a computer. Speaking is far more tiring, especially when you're sick, and makes it far less convenient to edit and rewrite than traditional text editing does.

Xurinos• 15 years ago

I am reminded of this old programming-with-voice gem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyLqUf4cdwc

mikebo• 15 years ago

This is a segway feature -- amazing technology, incredibly embarrassing to use in public.

dman• 15 years ago

I am sure at some point wearing headphones was incredibly embarrassing in public.

hammock• 15 years ago

Which point?

jarek• 15 years ago

I wouldn't go out wearing a pair of those fuzzy-padding headband ones. Monochromatic earbuds? Absolutely.

mitchty• 15 years ago

I think it still comes across as rude or offputting.

gamble• 15 years ago

Should be an awesome feature when combined with a handsfree car kit. The existing iPhone 4 voice recognition is very limited, but it still saves me from getting $200 tickets when I need to make calls on the road.

mfarris• 15 years ago

Have you been out in public lately? I don't think anybody is embarrassed by anything anymore.

With a phone, voice control is a real improvement over thumbing a wee li'l keyboard.

And exposing your personal affairs to everyone within earshot is now just another way to demonstrate your importance.

chintan• 15 years ago

There is an inherent friction in using any Software or a Gadget. A piece of technology or service that removes/reduces this friction is going to win BIG!

Some successful examples:

1. DropBox

2. Swipely

3. Kayak

4. Instapaper

5. GPS Voice navigation

6. Multi-touch interfaces

....

I believe Siri belongs to same the class of technologies..

HCI has still not reached 1.0

vailripper• 15 years ago

This essentially exists already with Google voice search. It isn't exactly game changing.

ugh2• 15 years ago

Execution. Execution. Execution.

iDisk offered essentially what Dropbox offers. iDisk sucked, Dropbox doesn’t.

I’m not saying the execution is great (I simply cannot know that at this point in time), I’m saying that execution is extremely important when it comes to whether something is game changing or not.

tomlin• 15 years ago

Siri was only for US when it launched, and the screen shots of the current implementation don't look any more favorable.

_delirium• 15 years ago

Took 24 years to ship, but the Apple Knowledge Navigator is finally out ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYFEI6uLy0

heyrhett• 15 years ago

It's like Ask Jeeves, but for my phone in the cloud!!!!

ryanwhitney• 15 years ago

Surprised that "but the specs are close to ____" arguments are still found around here.

Let's compare the iPhone 4's 5MP camera to the "8MP!!!" Androids.

nextparadigms• 15 years ago

Galaxy S II 8 MP camera is better than the iPhone 4 for one.

kno• 15 years ago

I foresee a new Jargon now in people communication just "tell Siri " if you need anything; Great job Apple as always.

oflannabhra2• 15 years ago

I have a handicapped friend, and we have been trying to get a good smartphone solution working for him. He's currently got an HTC EVO, and as many people have said, Android's voice capabilities are pretty amazing (although Android has a separate called "Voice Dialer" which is absolutely terrible for some reason). One problem he's had, however is touchscreen confirmation. Siri looks like it will fix a lot of problems, and allow him much more freedom.

Also, I'd like to give a shoutout to the folks developing Tecla ( http://scyp.idrc.ocad.ca/projects/tekla ) for Android. It's an open source wheelchair integration for Android that uses the Arduino to interface with whatever controls the user currently has. I found it in my search for a solution, but my friend wanted to hold off until he gets a new chair. Regardless, Tekla is easily the coolest mobile open source project I've discovered, and I just wanted to give those guys credit. The project page is https://launchpad.net/meadl

shoota8• 15 years ago

For your friend who is handicapped it looks like http://www.vlingo.com/apps/android Vlingo for Android might be able to help him a little bit more. The incar demo has talkback and voice confirmation. http://www.vlingo.com/demo/videos

macrael• 15 years ago

Do look at what iOS provides for accessibility. http://www.apple.com/accessibility/iphone/physical.html There are already a lot of built in features (which Siri no doubt augments greatly) for people with disabilities.

oflannabhra2• 15 years ago

While iOS 4 provides great accessibility features, it mostly excels in providing support for visually impaired users. As a touch interface, it has certain mobility requirements that Jimmy didn't like. He would have had to mount the phone inches from his face (where he keeps his non driving hand). Siri seems to greatly decrease those mobility requirements, and he is excited.

ralfd• 15 years ago

I guess it depends on the handicap, but presumably the iPhone is really useful for the blind: http://behindthecurtain.us/2010/06/12/my-first-week-with-the...

lordmatty• 15 years ago

I can see this starting to take over simple tasks. Love the idea of being able to dictate a reminder, or ask the phone to wake me up at 6AM (7AM?!).

How much quicker is it ask those questions, rather than navigate to the App, input the info? Lots!

brvsirrbn• 15 years ago

Think about the value of the aggregated data that comes when everyone (in every country) chooses to use Siri (in the US) as a primary input device. Privacy concerns, anyone?

fatbat• 15 years ago

Has it been mentioned if Siri would be open for Devs?

If not are there alternatives to Siri that app developers can use that behaves the same but open for hacking?

Apple Reveals Siri Voice Interface: The “Intelligent Assistant”

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