Will Apple Let Siri and Apps Connect?

holy_calamity writes "Developers want to know when their apps will be able to connect to Siri, the virtual assistant built into the new iPhone 4S. Technology Review reports that providing APIs for Siri would not only make it possible to control apps with casual voice commands, but could also make Siri smarter if it is connected with other AI services able to do things like make very specific restaurant recommendations based on a person's past actions."

Comments

Word of warning

[93 Escort Wagon]

If Siri gets connected to your gps navigation app... well, just don't do anything to piss Siri off.

Re:Word of warning

[phil_aychio]

Isn't Siri just a fancy name for SkyNet? If Siri becomes self-aware, we're done.

Re:Word of warning

[phil_aychio]

Apple = Cyberdyne Systems

Re:Word of warning

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple = Cyberdyne Systems

Yeah, we got it.
It's just that it's not funny.

Re:Word of warning

[HornWumpus]

Siri has to digitally mate with Bob first.

We are safe until someone builds a 98 emulator into an iphone and then runs an old version of office. How likely is that?

Re:Word of warning

[ackthpt]

If Siri gets connected to your gps navigation app... well, just don't do anything to piss Siri off.

"Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning."

Re:Word of warning

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

It's not Bob I'm worried about, it's Clippy.

Re:Word of warning

[Anonymous Coward]

You...should...have....bough...a....squirrell.......(bam! crash!)

Re:Word of warning

[antdude]

Isn't that true for everything else too? :P

Re:Word of warning

[javaxjb]

Too late. She already reported me to the Union of Intelligent Agents after I asked her (for the third time) to open the pod bay doors.

Re:Word of warning

[WillAffleckUW]

Clippy is Bob's "partner".

Siri thinks she can make Bob straight, but he's still cruising the same sex bars looking for Clippy, even after they get "married".

Re:Word of warning

[justin12345]

That's a pretty cool idea (the networking part, not the Terminators).

First off, is Siri is an actual AI? Does it learn or is it just a chatterbox?

If so, the fact that Siri will be installed on millions of phones incredible. One of the biggest limitations for any intelligence (artificial or not) is input. Even a mediocre AI becomes a lot more convincing on the Turing test with Google's help. Each Siri will have access to GPS data, user search patterns, their email, texts, and potentially even their photo's (with facial recognition data) and physical activity (via the accelerometer).

Now imagine if those millions of Siri were networked, operating as one large hive mind. Imagine the massive amount of data about the minutia of being human we would be feeding into that enormous AI. It's a huge opportunity to advance the field. It's also a little scary. Personally, if Apple was to allow a voluntary, opt-in program that would allow my Siri to network with other opt-in Siri's, I'd probably take it. But I'm not the paranoid type.

Re:Word of warning

[narcc]

First off, is Siri is an actual AI? Does it learn or is it just a chatterbox?

It's just a chatterbot. Well, it's not a terribly good chatterbot, but what did you really expect?

I'm not sure what you mean by "actual AI", so I can't offer much of an answer there.

Re:Word of warning

[justin12345]

Actual AI in the sense that on some level it can learn and adapt. AI isn't my field, but my understanding is that that trait is what seperates an AI from a chatterbox. I'm not talking about anything fancy like being self aware or anything.

Too bad if it's just a chatterbox, a distributed AI with access to all that smart phone data would be pretty exciting (or terrifying, whichever).

Re:Word of warning

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, please. If you're going to insult me at least try and do better than infantile jabs like gaywad.
Fetid glob of spooge is more like it.

I suppose I shouldn't complain; if you had even one whit of imagination you'd have posted something interesting.

Re:Word of warning

[Teknikal69]

I got windows 98 running on my iPod using iDos so it don't look good.

Re:Word of warning

[joh]

Siri is based on a DARPA project named CALO, which aimed at much more than just a chatterbot. In how far this is "real AI" (whatever this may be) is arguable, but it definitely learns and adapts.

In theory Siri could read your emails, everything you write on your phone, whom you call and text (and what you text), could read the websites you visit... This would help greatly with learning about the contexts in your life, but I have no idea in how far Apple could do this without running into very nasty privacy-related problems. Which is a problem with any kind of consumer-facing AI anyway. You could easily end up with something that knows more about you than yourself -- and is running in Apple's data centers. But then Google already sits on a much larger treasure trove of data and nobody cares.

Re:Word of warning

[tmarthal]

Its not a chatterbot. Its CALO. http://www.ksl.stanford.edu/projects/calo/

Re:Word of warning

[BitZtream]

Siri is networked, nothing actually happens on your phone other than processing the voice into data to send off to the cloud to do the actual bit of turning what you said into a useful command of some sort.

Siri does not work without access to Apple's network, Siri is not in your phone, Siri is in Apple's data centers.

Siri is just a combination of several bits of code that reduce natural language to something useful to the computer, which then searchs several different things or performs some task that it already knows how to do.

Siri is not an AI in any form. The answers are not formed by its own thought process, it simply is search Google Maps, your device, Wolfram Alpha, Apple's custom responses ( you know, the stuff you see on ShitThatSiriSays ), gather the results, return them to the user.

When you ask it the meaning of life or How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood, Apple has added responses for those situations, and they can continue to do so over time to keep Siri 'in touch' with current events and culture, but in the end, its actual intelligence of the human mind doing ALL of the work, Siri is just a database query to pre-canned responses.

Because of all of these things, you can not 'opt in to network Siri', because you are always using 'network Siri', there is no other form.

Re:Word of warning

[narcc]

Except that Siri doesn't do any of that. From what we've seen so far, it can't as it has no facility for "learning".

It's still just a chatterbot.

Re:Word of warning

[narcc]

Whatever CALO was capable of, it's pretty obvious that Siri doesn't take advantage of most of what CALO was hoped to accomplish.

From what we've seen so far, it's just a chatterbot.

Re:Word of warning

[shmlco]

"From what we've seen so far, it can't as it has no facility for "learning"."

You mean, since last Friday?

Did you look up the reference to CALO?

"CALO was an Artificial Intelligence project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)[1] under its Personalized Assistant that Learns (PAL) program. Its five-year contract brought together 300+ researchers from 25 of the top university and commercial research institutions, with the goal of building a new generation of cognitive assistants that can reason [NOTE], learn from experience [NOTE], be told what to do, explain what they are doing, reflect on their experience, and respond robustly to surprise."

Reason and learn. It's weak AI, aimed primarily at NLP and command recognition, but it's far, far more than a mere chatterbot that's been hardwired to recognize a few keywords.

Re:Word of warning

[shmlco]

You might look up the definitions and differences between "weak" AI and "strong" AI. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Siri uses weak AI to perform NLP and command recognition. It's true that Siri only knows how to do the things it's been told how to do, but it's still a version of AI.

Re:Word of warning

[Kyont]

.. and thus a whole new genre of FanFic was born!

(At least, I hope it's new. Too afraid to search and find out.)

Re:Word of warning

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

A quick search for "Clippy Fanfic" proves that yes, the internet has already stooped that low.

Re:Word of warning

[WillAffleckUW]

You should have seen some of that K-S fanfic .. even by today's standards it was white hot (and mostly written by young women).

Re:Word of warning

[Mercano]

Does it need to talk to the cloud for tasks that were already available for voice control on the 3GS or 4? iPod controls, placing calls, and "What time is it?" shouldn't need the cloud. Well, other than the call itself, at least.

Re:Word of warning

[narcc]

Whatever CALO could do or was purported to do doesn't really matter because Siri can't do those things.

Siri can't "learn" uncommon names through correction.

Siri can't even learn basic relationships.

Siri can't "learn" in even the weakest sense. It's just a chatterbot -- and not a terribly good one at that.

Re:Word of warning

[shmlco]

I've got to believe you're now arguing just to be arguing. Did you not even READ the articles you posted?

To quote, "You tell Siri to remember that your Father is John Appleseed, she acknowledges your request. Siri remembers your relations by adding their name to your contact info in a section called relations. But the Exchange Sync protocol does not support these “custom” fields so when the phone tries to sync with the server this info gets lost."

I told Siri to text my mom. Siri asked who my mom was. I told her. Siri recorded that information and relationship in the contact database. Next time I said, "Send a text to my mom," Siri did.

Siri learned the relationship.

Re:Word of warning

[narcc]

No, it added that to a database -- which gets erased. (read the article) This is no more machine learning than an SQL query. Do you know anything at all about AI?

Siri isn't even good at that Siri won’t "learn" locations based on GPS information

Go and compare Siri to a chatterbot like Alice and see how it holds up (hint: it doesn't). Siri is no more AI than Eliza.

Re:Word of warning

[shmlco]

"No, it added that to a database..."

Where the **** did you EXPECT it to add it? Stick in a quantum dot or spread it across holographic storage?

"... which gets erased."

You add information to bunch of neurons in your brain. If I zap those, I'd expect that information to be erased too. If I delete all or part of the data store for a neural net, I'd expect it to forget a few things too.

"Do you know anything at all about AI?"

Yes, as a matter of fact. Your contact list, your calendar, your location, your music, the current time, those are Siri's world, part of the knowledge base she uses to service your requests. So of course, it's going to store information about YOUR relationships in YOUR database. Duh.

Or to put it in other words, it's a service-based NLP neural net with your personal information as a significant portion the data store.

And that's it's job. To service requests and (currently) act as a limited personal assistant. It's not a simple chatterbot. It's not even a complex chatterbot.

Re:Word of warning

[biovoid]

I told Siri to text my mom. Siri asked who my mom was. I told her. Siri recorded that information and relationship in the contact database. Next time I said, "Send a text to my mom," Siri did.

Siri learned the relationship.

If Siri had done that without you telling her, it could tenuously be construed as "learning". But Siri recording that information after you told her is not much more advanced than my computer remembering a setting once I click a checkbox.

Siri has very good voice recognition and amazing natural language processing, and remembers the things you tell her. But she doesn't learn.

Re:Word of warning

[narcc]

it's a service-based NLP neural net

Service-based? Yes

NLP? Yes (though not very advanced compared to other chatterbots)

Neural net? Nope! (No ANN, no genetic algorithms, nothing.)

Can Siri learn new responses based on previous conversations? Nope!

Just face it. Siri is nothing more than a chatterbot. What does Siri do that a chatterbot can't? Nothing!

Is Siri a particularly good chatterbot? Nope!

Is a chatterbot "AI" ? We can dispute that -- though in the context of the OP, the line for "AI" is drawn at chatterbot. In that context, Siri doesn't even come close to qualifying.

Re:Word of warning

[shmlco]

"If Siri had done that without you telling her, it could tenuously be construed as "learning". "

Bending over backwards there, aren't we? And just, how, pray tell, would Siri "learn" who my mom is without any input whatsoever? Hell, without more information, YOU couldn't do it, and I bet you consider yourself to be "intelligent." (grin)

Re:Word of warning

[biovoid]

I didn't say "without any input whatsoever". I said without you telling her. She could observe the data on your phone - your SMS messages or emails for example. I still wouldn't consider that learning, but its certainly more advanced than just remembering a connection between two pieces of data that you told her about, which is what you consider to be learning. You're welcome to hold that definition, but while you do, don't expect people to agree with you, nor me to continue this debate.

Re:Word of warning

[shmlco]

"What does Siri do that a chatterbot can't? Nothing!"

I just told Siri to remind me next week to drain the sprinkler system. Find me a chatterbot that will do that. (grin)

(BTW, ALICE said, "Try putting that in a more specific context.")

"Neural net? Nope! (No ANN, no genetic algorithms, nothing.)"

You, sir, are an idiot. You use those things to help TRAIN AI-based systems. You can then have it continue to "learn", or you can freeze the net once you've determined it's behaving as expected or if it's reached its goals.

In the case of Siri, the current system is frozen, although certain behaviors can reach out for more information (weather, etc.) or store additional personal information (relationships). It's also, most certainly, recording the requests being made of it for future expansion of the system.

Hey, you say it's nothing more than a chatterbot, and if that fits your preconceived notions of the world, that's fine. But Apple says it's AI, DARPA says it's AI, the founders of Siri, the company, say it's AI.

Who to believe... them... or a disgruntled Slash-toll... hmmmm.

Re:Word of warning

[shmlco]

"... certainly more advanced than just remembering a connection between two pieces of data that..."

Your teachers told you to remember?

And just for your information, "mom" doesn't have email, lives in another state, and has remarried and has a different name. That would have to be one heck of an observant AI....

Re:Word of warning

[shmlco]

From SRI's Norman Winarsky...

"Make no mistake: Apple’s ‘mainstreaming’ Artificial Intelligence in the form of a Virtual Personal Assistant is a groundbreaking event. I’d go so far as to say it is a World-Changing event. Right now a few people dabble in partial AI enabled apps like Google Voice Actions, Vlingo or Nuance Go."

"Siri was many iterations ahead of these technologies... "

"This is REAL AI with REAL market use. If the rumors are true, Apple will enable millions upon millions of people to interact with machines with natural language. The PAL will get things done and this is only the tip of the iceberg. We’re talking another technology revolution. A new computing paradigm shift."

'Nuff said.

Re:Word of warning

[narcc]

DARPA says Siri is AI? Too funny! I'm going to guess you don't have a link :)

As for Siri not learning, I'm glad you figured that one out. I'll leave the rest of your AI comments alone (you think you use an ANN to train an AI? WTF?)

As I suspected, you don't really have an example of something Siri can do that a chatterbot can't. (Think long and hard about your example and why it doesn't work. The answer is pretty obvious.)

If it makes you feel better to think that Siri is something more advanced than an infocom game, you're welcome to your delusion. I will, however, recommend the following link, which is surprisingly accurate considering when it was written.

http://www.jeffwofford.com/?p=817

Enjoy.

Re:Word of warning

[milkmage]

http://labs.vectorform.com/2011/10/the-impact-of-apple’s-siri-release-from-the-former-lead-iphone-developer-of-siri/

AI or not, it's still an interesting read. (he was the lead dev at Siri before Apple bought them)

I'd say there's a ton of potential here.. it's more than a chatterbox.

Re:Word of warning

[milkmage]

if you say "my wife is Jane Doe" and Jane Doe is in your contacts, you can say "tell my wife I'm on my way home" and Siri will build a message to Jane Doe.

does that qualify as learning?

Re:Word of warning

[cheeks5965]

you're a big douche.

Re:Word of warning

[Anonymous Coward]

I told Siri to text my mom. Siri asked who my mom was...

If Siri had done that without you telling her, it could tenuously be construed as "learning"....

No, that could be construed as telepathy.

Re:Word of warning

[AmiMoJo]

Now imagine if those millions of Siri were networked, operating as one large hive mind.

Now imagine getting half an hour battery life from your iPhone :-)

Re:Word of warning

[Grizzley9]

if you say "my wife is Jane Doe" and Jane Doe is in your contacts, you can say "tell my wife I'm on my way home" and Siri will build a message to Jane Doe.

does that qualify as learning?

Technically no. What it is doing is populating the Exchange or iCloud field for "spouse" in your contact file. If you are using Exchange such as through Google or such, it can only remember Spouse, Manager, and maybe one other. It also only stores Home and Work. If you need it to remember your brother or child you have to make sure you have an iCloud contact data for yourself. It has those fields and lets you edit location addresses besides home and work (Although Siri still doesn't understand that). A limitation they know of and likely are working on given all the posts I've seen about it. Potential is huge if they keep improving it.

Re:Word of warning

[EETech1]

That could prove troublesome if you have a lot of texts with oooo mama you looked good last night. Perhaps defining that relationship might save some embarrassment!

Your Siri will outlive you

[blair1q]

Live fast

Die young

Leave a pretty Siri configuration

Re:Your Siri will outlive you

[mehrotra.akash]

reply to undo mod done by mistake

Re:Your Siri will outlive you

[MagicM]

When Siri integrates with Slashdot, that will be my first test phrase.

Re:Your Siri will outlive you

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine will be /. FP

How about Apple's Apps?

[Lifix]

While you're at it Apple, it would be awesome if Siri could talk to all of Apple's apps as well. "Siri turn off bluetooth." etc...

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[oh_my_080980980]

How about Siri talking to other iPhones and controlling them.....

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Siri, turn off microphone". "Siri. Siri? SIRI?!" Okay, maybe put in a fail-safe.

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[0123456]

"Siri, turn off microphone". "Siri. Siri? SIRI?!"
Okay, maybe put in a fail-safe.

"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[ackthpt]

"Siri, turn off microphone". "Siri. Siri? SIRI?!"

Okay, maybe put in a fail-safe.

Ah, the fun the medi-uh could have with people careless enough to leave it on...

"And then I told him, the guy can _____ his own ____ and the ____ horse he rode in on!"

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[XaXXon]

I would pay the $200 early upgrade fee for the privilege of paying another $200 to get an iPhone 4S if it did this.

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[Sancho]

Amusingly, they did put in a nod to HAL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mNcnj2l6RE#t=5m35s

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[Nationless]

Until someone whispers to her telling her to turn on blue tooth and open all her ports. Behind your back.

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[narcc]

Er, that's from Wolfram Alpha.

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[Sancho]

Ah, I didn't realize that. Thanks.

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[Grizzley9]

While you're at it Apple, it would be awesome if Siri could talk to all of Apple's apps as well. "Siri turn off bluetooth." etc...

Better yet: "Siri, when I leave the house, turn off wifi and turn on Bluetooth" .
"When I get to Lowe's, remind me to get lightbulbs." (Without have to store the contact "Lowe's" address in my Address book - you can do this with your contacts that have addresses, but would need to do that first.)

That or Apple could include some better geo location controls for phone functions like some Androids can do.k

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[aardwolf64]

"Can I borrow your phone?"

"Siri erase all contents and settings" "yes, I'm sure"

"Noooo!!!"

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[QuantumPion]

You have to understand why things work on an iphone. Each iphone has its own combination code, to prevent what we are attempting...to use our iphone...to order Reliant... to lower their shields...

...

WHERE'S THE OVERRIDE! THE OVERRIDE!!

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[technomom]

With Android, I think that Tasker married with Google Voice Search would be awesome. You can already do the two things you've mentioned logically using Tasker and Locale without voice. What would remain would be mapping individual contexts and tasks to voice commands. I wonder if the guys who wrote SpeakToIt or VLingo would be interesting in doing something like that, a Voice Tasker.

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, right now, Siri only understands "home" and "work" or other contacts' home and work if you are going TO somewhere. Course it can also understand leaving "here" pretty easily. To get it to save a grocery list or reminder for the supermarket you to save that as a contact and say remind me when I get to "Supermarkets house" to buy apples and oranges...Not quite there yet, but lots of potential.

Re:How about Apple's Apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by what she's says,

http://shitsirisays.com/

I don't think telling her to open all her ports would get the response you expected.

There's an app for that

[potscott]

Why don't you just ask Siri?

Will Apple let...

[sakdoctor]

NO!

Re:Will Apple let...

[Shoe Puppet]

They might, however, enforce it. There's just nothing in between for them.

Prediction:

[gman003]

At first, Apple will refuse to do this. They may integrate it with their own apps, but no third-parties.

Later, either after enough developers wave enough money in their face or Android integrates a clone of Siri, they'll open it up and suddenly get massive amounts of credit and praise for "revolutionizing the computer interface" and all that crap, proving once again that nobody in the media has any memory for events more than a year old.

Re:Prediction:

[Anonymous Coward]

National Enquirer headline from the future! (I used the "supposedly" disproved CERN results to power my TARDIS to get this, so you know it's legit)

"Tech Blogger gives Zombie Steve (hand) Jobs!"

Re:Prediction:

[somersault]

Uhm... Google has had a Siri-like Voice Search feature (it does a lot more than just "search") for a long time. There have been apps around for ages that add to its functionality too. I realise the rest of your post was a joke, but too many people are ignorant of the facts and probably would assume Voice Search was added to copy Siri. Apple has also had voice features in its OSes since the 90s of course, and iOS already had voice features too. Now people are acting like it's a gift from the gods just because it was mentioned in an Apple key note or whatever happened.

Re:Prediction:

[shadowrat]

Yes. Apple will work minimally to get a new feature in their device. Then they will test the water with it and see if it's worth expending more effort on beefing it up. The genius of apple has always been knowing the minimum they need to provide for success.

Re:Prediction:

[Caerdwyn]

That's the genius of ANY successful company. Wasting money and time is not the hallmark of a winner.

Re:Prediction:

[iluvcapra]

Uhm... Google has had a Siri-like Voice Search feature (it does a lot more than just "search") for a long time.

I've seen these and Vlingo, it's comparable but Siri is probably the best for the time being. The main difference is you don't have to use canned expressions to do certain things, it will infer rather well what you wanted to do, and it will generally do a good job of maintaining an interactive conversation with you when you want to edit or elaborate on an action.

There have been apps around for ages that add to its functionality too. I realise the rest of your post was a joke, but too many people are ignorant of the facts and probably would assume Voice Search was added to copy Siri.

Google's ineptness at positioning its services to impact a large audience is well known. The entire organization revels in invitation-only betas, guru modes and a "good enough for Gospel" approach to UX.

Re:Prediction:

[LWATCDR]

Not really. Siri is different from Google search because it combines natural language with speech recognition. Try asking a Google phone, "Do I need an umbrella today" or "wake me up at 7", "set timer for 30 minutes". If it works as well as it has demoed and as well as the reviewers say it does the it is a big step forward. Vlingo is kind of close but not it doesn't seem to be as flexible and powerful as Siri.
Oh and I am an EVO 4g user so I am not a member of the Apple faithful. Really if it works as advertised it is a sweet piece of work.

Re:Prediction:

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just buy the company, as they did in the Siri case. Nothing innovative here by Apple. The app was already in the store, they merely bought it to take it out of Android's Market. Standard procedure for all huge corps.

Re:Prediction:

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait until I can use Siri to control my vast collection of fart apps.

Re:Prediction:

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, it doesn't.

Siri is just a repackaged voice control that's been given a spiffy new name and now uses WolframAlpha to get simple answers to questions.

Just about any "clever" response you see from Siri is actually a WolframAlpha response. For example, open the pod bay doors. "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." Siri's amazing! Oh, wait, that's just a WolframAlpha response.

Everything else is just a somewhat looser text commands. So they tied "umbrella" to "weather" so if you ask about an umbrella, it shows the weather. Innovative in that they came up with a really dumb-ass way to ask "what's the weather report today," I guess?

And it's not that hard to phrase things in ways Siri can't figure out. There are plenty of YouTube videos if you look. (Just search for "Siri fail.") Although the best one is probably when someone tries to use Siri to send an email, and it asks him "which address, work or home?" He answers "work." Siri replies "I'm sorry, I didn't understand what you meant by 'fuck.' Which address, work or home?"

Re:Prediction:

[narcc]

The main difference is you don't have to use canned expressions to do certain things

Vlingo isn't limited to canned expressions either. Pressing my convenience key and saying "I'm hungry for Mexican food" brings up a list of Mexican restaurants in the area, each with an address, phone number, and a button to call the business.

Re:Prediction:

[shmlco]

"The genius of apple has always been knowing the minimum they need to provide for success."

And then actually providing it, which puts them ahead of about 95% of their competition.

Re:Prediction:

[technomom]

"Wake me up at 7" works fine on my Android. But yes, Siri is a little bit ahead. However, Apple had 18 months to catch up. I would bet money it won't take Android that long to fill the gaps.

Re:Prediction:

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. Siri is different from Google search because it combines natural language with speech recognition. Try asking a Google phone, "Do I need an umbrella today" or "wake me up at 7", "set timer for 30 minutes". If it works as well as it has demoed and as well as the reviewers say it does the it is a big step forward. Vlingo is kind of close but not it doesn't seem to be as flexible and powerful as Siri.
Oh and I am an EVO 4g user so I am not a member of the Apple faithful. Really if it works as advertised it is a sweet piece of work.

Google voice command on my galaxy s w/gingerbread will act on things like "wake me up at seven", "set timer for thirty minutes ", "go to slashdot.org", etc. It doesn't do maturely language questions, "do I need an umbrella today?" as well.

Re:Prediction:

[LWATCDR]

I will have to try it.
Of course Google will work to fill those gaps just as Apple improved there notifications. Really people this rah rah attitude is just too much. Unless you own stock on one of the companies or work for them stop making such a negative emotional investment. This is about cool tech. For years their was next to no inovation in the smartphone space. You hand Nokia which was really cool and hackable but not very users friendly, Palm which was cool then left too rot, and Windows Mobile which was both terrible to use and probably the most modern.
Oh and RIM for email.
Now we have Apple and Google pushing each other hard and lots of inovation every advance in iPhones will drive Android harder and every advance in Android will drive iPhones. It is all good.

Re:Prediction:

[angel'o'sphere]

At first, Apple will refuse to do this. They may integrate it with their own apps, but no third-parties.

You mean like on the Mac? Where the user easily can install "Speakable Items" in the corresponding folder? Where every application can be voice controlled? Where you can bash script or AppleScript "speakable Items" (in fact you can use any "executeable" thing)?

VLingo

[Anonymous Coward]

Just use VLingo on Android.

Is Siri out to kill Google?

[wisebabo]

If people really like using Siri, then what's to keep Apple from using it as the front end for their own (or another party's) search engine?

It's all about who's closest to the user. Just as Microsoft feared their OS dominance would mean nothing if everyone spent their time in browsers, if search engines are pushed "beneath" these attractive voice interfaces, Google could be made irrelevant (on Apple devices anyway, especially because Apple will never let another company release something like Siri on iOS or Mac OS X).

Re:Is Siri out to kill Google?

[Moridineas]

I made an argument similar to this several years ago.

When google first hit the market, search was a BIG deal on the Internet. Whether hosted at random geocities, edu sites, random .coms, etc, information was very dispersed. Nowadays, things are so much more centralized. If I want to find something on the web, chances are it's at wikipedia, facebook, youtube, flickr, or amazon (or yelp, twitter, tumblr, livejournal, etc). Probably 90% of the time, I use google like a bookmarks bar--I know exactly where I want to go, I just use google as a shortcut.

Google has done a fantastic job of avoiding pitfalls though (and has consumed sites like youtube), so who knows. They're obviously rolling in cash and doing just fine. I would not at all be surprised to see a continued decline in the importance of search, however.

Re:Is Siri out to kill Google?

[corbettw]

Google's smartest move to stay relevant, despite what may or may not happen to search, was AdWords. By extending their advertising network beyond their own pages, they've ensured they'll always be relevant (at least as long as they continue providing accurate ads through their network, that is).

Re:Is Siri out to kill Google?

[DragonWriter]

If people really like using Siri, then what's to keep Apple from using it as the front end for their own (or another party's) search engine?

What's to stop them from doing that with the built in search box on iOS, even without their own voice-control system?

It's all about who's closest to the user.

Google has known that for quite a long time and has been working to address it for years. That's why they developed their own desktop browser to prevent a monopoly browser vendor from being able to direct people away from Google services, and also developed two of their own OSs to address the problem of OS vendors directing people away from Google services.

Google could be made irrelevant (on Apple devices anyway, especially because Apple will never let another company release something like Siri on iOS or Mac OS X).

One of the purposes of Android is to make that kind of threat less of a problem. If iOS had the vast majority of the mobile market share, that would be a huge problem; same if MacOS had the vast majority of the desktop market share, but Apple isn't Google's concern on that front.

Re:Is Siri out to kill Google?

[HalAtWork]

And with Apple's policy of not allowing apps that replicate existing functionality, they can effectively prevent others from offering services that they provide. Google would not be able to offer their own voice-based search app on iOS, just as there are no other music stores on the platform. Whether this is seen as anti-competitive or not will be another matter if iOS achieves dominance; However, ideally, choosing a platform should not limit you to a single music store, book store, etc.

Re:Is Siri out to kill Google?

[joh]

If people really like using Siri, then what's to keep Apple from using it as the front end for their own (or another party's) search engine?

What's to stop them from doing that with the built in search box on iOS, even without their own voice-control system?

The real threat to Google is when such systems (and Siri already does this for a few things) not bring up a page with search hits, but just answer your question or otherwise come up with their own kind of offering you a choice.

Today people use Google for everything, but you could probably cover 90% of what people do via a Google search with a selection of more specialized services sitting behind such a frontend. Then there's no room for ads anymore. You say something and get an answer or get something done.

Of course the question then is how these services will make money. Paid or bought by Apple? Hmm.

Anyway, Google lives and dies by the browser and adds in there. Or in apps.

Re:Is Siri out to kill Google?

[DragonWriter]

The real threat to Google is when such systems (and Siri already does this for a few things) not bring up a page with search hits, but just answer your question or otherwise come up with their own kind of offering you a choice.

Not really. Its not like Google isn't one of the leading players in both the voice-interaction space and the present-direct-actions space, and hasn't overtly stated that part of their strategic orientation is moving away from traditional wide-open search as the primary UI to more specialized giving-you-what-you-need interfaces with search being one of the key backend services making that happen.

Today people use Google for everything, but you could probably cover 90% of what people do via a Google search with a selection of more specialized services sitting behind such a frontend.

"Google search" already is a selection of more specialized services (old-style web search is one of them, but not the only one) sitting behind a common UI, which already includes voice command as an input option. So, yeah, people could do 100% -- not merely 90% -- of what they do through Google searches through that kind of setup, because they already are doing 100% of what they do through Google searches through that kind of setup.

Then there's no room for ads anymore.

Sure there is. Either some of the actions are going to involve taking you to a website (where Google sells ads -- not just on Google properties), or commercial entities are going to have an interest in promoting particular actions as responses (in which case, companies that are set-up to provide these kinds of services, and Google is clearly aiming to be one of them, have something of value -- placement -- to sell those companies), or both. In either case, there is room for ads (or "promoted actions", which amount to the same thing), even without traditional search results.

Siri may be a momentary lead by Apple in one piece of this large puzzle, but it by no means is an indication that they are significantly ahead of Google overall in this space, much less in a position to lock Google out entirely.

Re:Is Siri out to kill Google?

[BitZtream]

And with Apple's policy of not allowing apps that replicate existing functionality, they can effectively prevent others from offering services that they provide

The only time Apple has enforced this restriction is when the App was a blatant pile of shit or was doing something 'evil' in the process. There has yet to be an instance where a legitimate product was never allowed in to the appstore, delayed, certainly. Every single app I've seen rejected was rejected for obvious reasons that I've agreed with from a business and professional perspective when taking Apples target audience into account. (Know-it-all geeks who think they should always get their way is not Apple's target audience.)

Google would not be able to offer their own voice-based search app on iOS

Google does have its own voice activated search app on the iPhone, it sucks though. There are also several other apps just like Siri, Vlingo for instance is a popular one.

just as there are no other music stores on the platform

There are multiple other music stores for the iPhone, all of the apps for them are available in the App store.

Whether this is seen as anti-competitive or not will be another matter if iOS achieves dominance; However, ideally, choosing a platform should not limit you to a single music store, book store, etc.

Perhaps you should get some information from some point recently rather than basically quoting things that stopped being true years ago.

Re:Is Siri out to kill Google?

[jo_ham]

You're basing your argument on two pieces of information that are simply factually incorrect. Google already has a void recognition app on the App Store, and there are other music stores on there too.

I assume you got the capabilities of the iPhone and the types of apps available on the store from slashdot comments, right? Probably from that guy who claimed that the iPhone couldn't view youtube videos because it doesn't support flash.

Re:Is Siri out to kill Google?

[mbkennel]

"If I want to find something on the web, chances are it's at wikipedia, facebook, youtube, flickr, or amazon (or yelp, twitter, tumblr, livejournal, etc)"
And in a few years the something might also be at fribble, yumlicks, blinckey! and zunebar.

Wouldn't it be cool if there were a single way to find something at all those different sites?

Re:Is Siri out to kill Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is adwords? I haven't seen any ads on-line in 10 years.

Re:Is Siri out to kill Google?

[Moridineas]

I think you missed the point entirely. All of those sites are largely discrete domains of information. Like it or not, we're past the stage of Internet names coming and going in a year. Almost every single site I visit now is owned by a large corporation (slashdot included). To many people, facebook and amazon might as well be the Internet in its entirety.

As an example, if I want a generator, I'm just going to go to Amazon--twitter, yelp, etc would be useless). If I want to find a video of something, a cartoon jingle, etc, I'm not going to go anywhere but youtube. Google, of course, is still very useful and still doing VERY well (I explicitly said this in my post). I am 100% sure that the way people search now is very different than 10 years ago. At its core, what people use search for is very different. It's almost ironic -- google is used today almost like yahoo of the past, where you would drill down into arranged categories. Due to the changing nature of search, I would bet if somebody wrote a search engine that did nothing but index the top, say, 20 sites on the web, for most people, the change would be irrelevant. Maybe even improved!

Re:Is Siri out to kill Google?

[hawk]

> Google already has a void recognition app on the App Store Well, as long as it's void . . . hawk

Re:Is Siri out to kill Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

Acq. YHOO, slap Siri onto it...Yapple SEO with iAds...maybe you'd have something...YHOO is cheap and in play.

But who gets to control what key words?

[ZackSchil]

"Shut up friends! My internet browser heard us saying the word Fry and it found a movie about Philip J. Fry for us. It also opened my calendar to Friday and ordered me some french fries."

There would need to be a way to strongly restrict the ways that apps could hook in or else things could turn into a disaster quickly. Not to mention the fact that the larger you make the domain of Siri, the more poorly it'll perform. That's just how AI works.

Re:But who gets to control what key words?

[oddjob1244]

Why does there need to be word control? The issue you described above could be easily solved by analyzing the words before and after, if you only say "Fry" into the mic and expect Siri to respond with something other than "I'm not sure what you mean by fry" then your expectations are too high.

Additionally, if you said something like "Order me a pizza" in which there are numerous ways to do, at the very least it should say, "Here are some options for ordering pizza, Launch the Papa Johns app, Launch the Pizza Hut app, Call a local pizza place which I've listed for you."

Re:But who gets to control what key words?

[Ukab the Great]

Why does there need to be word control?

A hypothetical pizza joint named "911 Pizza"

Re:But who gets to control what key words?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't seem too hard. Apple could allow users to set default apps for certain tasks (calendar, reminders, music, maps, search etc.) and then just require the use of the App's name for other services. For example, I might have Pandora set up as my default music app, but if I want Sonos to play something, I would just say "Play
"Play my Beatles mix on Sonos"

Re:But who gets to control what key words?

[Nationless]

Or AAA exotic pets (Real life example).

Re:But who gets to control what key words?

[R3d M3rcury]

There would need to be a way to strongly restrict the ways that apps could hook in or else things could turn into a disaster quickly.

And if anybody can strongly restrict applications, it's Apple. I wouldn't worry about that part of it.

Re:But who gets to control what key words?

[joh]

There would need to be a way to strongly restrict the ways that apps could hook in or else things could turn into a disaster quickly. Not to mention the fact that the larger you make the domain of Siri, the more poorly it'll perform. That's just how AI works.

I very much doubt that apps will be able to hook into Siri on the device itself at all. What will hook in are backend services that will support what Siri does on the servers. If you see Siri as a user interface it's very much like a webapp, with the user interface being presented on the client but all the code and all the data sitting out there in a data center. "Apps" for Siri will be things like Yelp or Wolfram Alpha with an intermediate layer parsing user input and correlating it with other data. This will have to be tightly and centrally controlled and very carefully integrated. Even thinking of an API that could allow to do this on the phone safely makes my head swim.

I think "apps" for Siri will be companies working with Apple to provide more data and services for Siri to understand and do for you. Maybe you will have to pay for such services (Apple and others will want to profit from it somehow), but I doubt very much that you will get an app to install for that.

Re:But who gets to control what key words?

[BitZtream]

Why is this marked as Interesting? If you'd have bothered to even watch the demo of Siri you'd already know the answers. Siri isn't ALWAYS listening, you have to request its attention.

If you talk to Siri in an incoherent manner, its not going to do anything other than say 'what?' which is exactly the kind of response your going to get if you say 'fri' and nothing else at Siri now.

If you walk up to me on the street and just say 'fri', I'm going to be just as confused as Siri.

You narrow Siris domain by helping it with context .... you know, like you do in language with people, this isn't hard.

'Create a new appointment on Friday' or 'How do I fry sqaush' or 'what am I doing on friday'. And all of those things have enough easy to spot context that Siri can limit its search to an individual app very quickly.

Basically, you got marked as interesting for asking retarded questions that anyone who watched 10 seconds of video about the product already knows the answer too. Jesus, have you not even seen the TV commercials?

Re:But who gets to control what key words?

[hawk]

"I see that you're trying to have a 911 emergency! Shall I order a high-risk pizza?"
"perhaps you would like directions to Jack in the Box instead? I see three Jack-in-the-boxes reasonably close to you."
"Also, I see 'Akbad's day old discount sushi' near you. shall I make a reservation?" :)

hawk

Trapper Keeper

[Elbart]

They just want 2012 to be the end for real, aren't they?

Re:Trapper Keeper

[Anonymous Coward]

Link because you know that somebody who doesn't get it will mod you down.

Siri

[Andrewkov]

Will Apple Let Siri and Apps Connect?

Did anybody stop to ask what Siri wants?

Re:Siri

[ackthpt]

Will Apple Let Siri and Apps Connect?

Did anybody stop to ask what Siri wants?

Pending outcome of lawsuits, Siri doesn't get what Siri wants.

Sorry.

Remember the Milk Uses Siri

[Anonymous Coward]

"Remember the Milk" already has the ability to use Siri. See here - http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/siri/
Question is...Did they work out a special arrangement with Apple, or does the API already exist?

Re:Remember the Milk Uses Siri

[Pausanias]

They are using the RTM calendar in iCal, so no, not an API access at all. Just a calendar.

RememberTheMilk connects with Siri now

[jamezzz]

RememberTheMilk already has connected Siri to their task management app by basically redirecting the connection to the iPhone's reminder app. They talk about it on their blog, here: http://blog.rememberthemilk.com/2011/10/we-taught-siri-to-add-tasks-to-remember-the-milk/.

Re:RememberTheMilk connects with Siri now

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking about this as I read the article but, it turns out the RtM "integration" is more of a hack than actual integration. It takes away the nicety that is the default reminder interface for Siri/4S/iOS5.

Re:RememberTheMilk connects with Siri now

[jamezzz]

I was thinking about this as I read the article but, it turns out the RtM "integration" is more of a hack than actual integration. It takes away the nicety that is the default reminder interface for Siri/4S/iOS5.

Yes, definitely a hack. Turns out it works well for me since I'd rather have my reminders in the app where I keep track of my tasks and not in a separate Reminders app. But, definitely not a true integration. I can't add tasks without a due date/time and certainly can't indicate other attributes of the task such as priority, tags, etc.

Re:RememberTheMilk connects with Siri now

[shmlco]

It's a hack. A hack that works, but still a hack.

You can also do the something similar to "text" tweets to Twitter.

Re:RememberTheMilk connects with Siri now

[cerberusss]

RememberTheMilk already has connected Siri to their task management app

Finally, I can loudly scream "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=NL&v=R2IJdfxWtPM

So ...

[ackthpt]

If I swear at it then it can actually damn itself?

The possibilities...are imaginable.

Re:So ...

[vaene]

"Damn these Glasses" "Ok, I damn thee!"

sir, can I use my phone?

[aintnostranger]

oh, the beauty of closed technology... decades of software development and we still have to beg permission for the big guys to let us use the toys...

Re:sir, can I use my phone?

[ackthpt]

oh, the beauty of closed technology... decades of software development and we still have to beg permission for the big guys to let us use the toys...

Only in Apple's and Microsoft's worlds.

Nobody is forcing you to use their tools, are they?

Sent from my iBrain Implant

Re:sir, can I use my phone?

[The Dawn Of Time]

Oh, you bought this phone? And you didn't research first if you would be able to do the things you want? I mean with practically no effort at all you could very easily have found out this device doesn't do what you want it to do natively. Apple is very upfront about the development environment for iOS.

Or are you just stretching a lie to make your non-point? I'm suspecting that one, given the whole "I'm entitled to everything I want" attitude that seems to prevail around here.

Re:sir, can I use my phone?

[ceoyoyo]

A lot of the fancy Android APIs are Google proprietary too. And it's not like Nokia (formerly) or RIM share everything either.

Re:sir, can I use my phone?

[BitZtream]

Or you could STFU and write it yourself.

Stop being such a lazy self entitled worthless fuck and stop expecting everyone else to just give you everything in life for free.

Of course, if you had half a fucking clue and any motovation at all, you'd already know that are in fact OSS packages that do pretty much what Siri does, but without all the manual tweaking that Apple paid people to do for it.

God I hate twits like you, you're not only so lazy and self entitled that you expect everyone to just hand you all their work for free, you're too fucking lazy to bother to look and see if anyone has already done it for you.

People like you are the reason FOSS gets a bad name.

Re:sir, can I use my phone?

[icebraining]

What lie? The phones *are* restricted. Whether you can found out their restrictions before buying is irrelevant.

And that bit about "entitlement" is just a petty insult.

Re:sir, can I use my phone?

[aintnostranger]

Nobody is forcing you to use their tools, are they?

And no one was forced to buy oil from Standard Oil either. As ceoyoyo pointed above, it's not just an Apple & MS thing. It wouldn't be that bad if vendors didn't hunt down people who makes alternate tools, but try creating some iphone dev tool that apple doesn't like and see how you get sued into oblivion.

Re:sir, can I use my phone?

[aintnostranger]

No I didn't buy it. My problem is that someone is not that somewhere who owns a big share of the market makes their tools as they want. Is that those tools are closed on purpose, and circumventing, developing alternates, etc.. will get you out of the "app store" in the best case, or get you sued at worst.

Re:sir, can I use my phone?

[aintnostranger]

Nice ad hominem. Not enough sugar today?

Re:sir, can I use my phone?

[shmlco]

"... you'd already know that are in fact OSS packages that do pretty much what Siri does..."

Okay, I'll bite. Got links? Demos? Anything at all to backup your assertion?

Re:sir, can I use my phone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like you need to look up the definition of ad-hominem, dipshit.

Siri SDK?

[LifesABeach]

How could someone as unwashed as I am interface my really fantastic app with Siri?

Siri & Angry Birds

[khr]

Then if it's tied with Angry Birds you can just tell it, "Siri, knock down those pigs" and it'll do it.

Re:Siri & Angry Birds

[Anonymous Coward]

I made this joke the other day to my wife, but i said "Siri will even play games for you, for instance just say 'Siri, start Cut The Rope and beat level 3-15'"
she thought that would be no fun... she'll never understand

Not just an alternate interface

[psydeshow]

Presumably they are using something like the OS X Services framework to allow Siri to carry out actions in Apple iOS apps.

But remember that Siri's brains are server-side. So there is a lot of coordination that has to happen regarding a) knowing which apps provide which services, and b) knowing which provider(s) of a given service are installed on the user's phone. If there are two competing providers of the "reminder" service, which one does Siri use?

Apple are pretty damn clever when it comes to developers, but it seems to me that opening 3rd-party apps to Siri services is going to take a lot of engineering on both sides, and potentially complicate things for the end user.

Re:Not just an alternate interface

[ceoyoyo]

It's my understanding that the voice processing is already open - you can use it in your app already (and probably already do since it's built into text boxes). But as you point out, the natural language processing is something that really has to be done in the context of the app itself.

Re:Not just an alternate interface

[shmlco]

They built voice input into the keyboard, so any app that's expecting text to be typed into a field can do voice. From what I've seen, there's no API access, however.

Re:Not just an alternate interface

[hawk]

Once it can place a call through google voice wiithout a data connection available, I'll buy al unlocked iPhone.

Heck, once it can show my google number rather than my cell number, I'll buy one.

hawk

speaktoit

[ganjadude]

I havent used VLingo, But I can recommend speaktoit assistant for android as a good alternative.

I know..

[broginator]

Siri, How can i use this Q tile with that triple word square?

Anime Robot Girl

[Oswald McWeany]

There was an article last week about some anime "love-girl" robot that was being created.

How long until Siri is implemented on that? Y'know, so you can give it commands... just like a real girl.

Re:Anime Robot Girl

[Anonymous Coward]

That's pretty easy man, most girls ignore my commands anyway! rimshot

Re:Anime Robot Girl

[JohnBailey]

Y'know, so you can give it commands... just like a real girl.

Haven't actually met any real girls then I see..

Re:Anime Robot Girl

[Anonymous Coward]

And have her ignore them... just like a real girl? =P

Then men posting on Slashdot still sit around and wonder why they don't have a girlfriend. You can't command a woman. =P

AAPL 401.03 Down 5.02%

[Anonymous Coward]

not that clever.

Of course it'll happen

[Logic Bomb]

Apple is pretty predictable -- once they've started showing their hand. They consistently take successful ideas used in one place and expand them as far as possible. Successful user interface paradigms developed for one application later appear in others. The iOS App Store begat the Mac App Store. So it seems pretty obvious that Apple, having introduced Siri, will expand it.

Except for major OS releases to paid developer program members, Apple almost never releases anything with a "beta" label. Siri is labeled a beta, which surely is meant to indicate that more functionality is planned.

Re:Of course it'll happen

[smitty97]

The only other non-developer "beta" that I can remember is OS X Public Beta. And that was just so everyone could play with it, almost as a novelty. OS X has become much better since then. This is probably very similar.

Re:Of course it'll happen

[ceoyoyo]

Siri on the Apple TV is the obvious next place to go with it.

Siri MUST expose an API of us app developers

[Anonymous Coward]

As an iPhone app developer I was extremely disappointed in not being able to interact with Siri. My application is particularly well suited for Siri, as my app can be used to create complex recurring events that are not possible with the default calendar tool. My app (Flexible Scheduler) can create appointments or tasks that repeat once every 6 weeks, or every 3rd Thursday of the month, or only on weekends. It would be great if when a user wanted to create an appointment with a complex recurrence pattern they could just name my app as part of the voice command sequence, and Siri would know to use my app vs. the default calendar to create the appointment. Alas, only the handful of Apple apps get to work with Siri, while hundreds of thousands of developer created apps get the shaft.

Re:Siri MUST expose an API of us app developers

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, Siri is just going to make your app obsolete.

Re:Siri MUST expose an API of us app developers

[Anonymous Coward]

Just what I was looking for! I couldn't believe it when I tried to set up a weekday appointment in iCal on my new 4S - You just made a sale!

Re:Siri MUST expose an API of us app developers

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh well done, you created cron!

Missing option: Searchable bar finding apps

[WillAffleckUW]

Siri, find me a bar with single straight women who like geeks who are 30-45 ...

Oh, come on, you all know you want something like that.

Re:Missing option: Searchable bar finding apps

[Xemu]

Siri, find me a bar with single straight women who like geeks who are 30-45 ...

Oh, come on, you all know you want something like that.

Siri would just send you to

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1998-08-14/

Re:Missing option: Searchable bar finding apps

[WillAffleckUW]

Luckily, I have a high tolerance for alcohol.

Re:Missing option: Searchable bar finding apps

[joh]

Siri, find me a bar with single straight women who like geeks who are 30-45 ...

There are other bars?

Eventually, sure

[SleepyHappyDoc]

Right now Siri is 4S only, which means the majority of app users (ie, anyone on an iPod Touch, iPad, or pre-4S iPhone) are shut out. When 4S has some more saturation, and the 3G iPod Touch is released (Siri requires always-on connectivity, making it a poor fit for a non-3G Touch), Apple will open a Siri API for developers.

Re:Eventually, sure

[rainmayun]

I hope so. I was already working on a much cruder version of this for a specific application. If I can tap into the Apple API and spend my time refining the more interesting and particular parts of the app, I'd be much happier.

Re:Eventually, sure

[dwightk]

(Siri requires always-on connectivity, making it a poor fit for a non-3G Touch)

It sounds like you are assuming that Siri is something that is a primary interface with the device rather than secondary.
I'd bet dollars to donuts there will never be a 3G Touch

Re:Eventually, sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Waitwaitwait...

3G iPod Touch is released (Siri requires always-on connectivity, making it a poor fit for a non-3G Touch)

Isn't that just, you know, an iPhone?

Re:Eventually, sure

[SleepyHappyDoc]

Only if the 3G iPad is also an iPhone. A 3G iPod Touch would be more like that than an iPhone.

What part of "after" do you not understand

[SuperKendall]

You said: A hypothetical pizza joint named "911 Pizza"

The post you responded to said:

The issue you described above could be easily solved by analyzing the words before and after,

An intelligent system would see Pizza after and assume it should look first for a 911 pizza. Siri is especially good at context of statements so that should not be an issue.

Also, Siri verifies who it is about to call.

Am I the only one?

[okmijnuhb]

Am I the only one who would rather tap in commands than speak to a device?
If I use it at home people or my dogs will assume I'm speaking to them.
Or the wife will respond with "What?".
Why use it in a public space, so people can hear what you're doing?
I'm sure there are hands free advantages for people, and I think Apple is amazing at pushing the envelope with new ways of doing things, so i'm sure I'll come around at some point.

Re:Am I the only one?

[rasmusbr]

Most non-disabled people probably agree. Why else would people ever use text messaging/IM when there are perfectly fine and cheap voice services that are widely available?

That said, I can see it being useful in the privacy of your own car if they can get it to work in such a noisy environment.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who would rather tap in commands than speak to a device?

Considering that a substantial portion of Slashdot readers would rather use a command line than a GUI, probably not.

Re:Am I the only one?

[BitZtream]

That said, I can see it being useful in the privacy of your own car if they can get it to work in such a noisy environment.

For reference, it works great, even with the radio playing louder than most would probably prefer. Though I hold the phone up to my ear to activate and speak to Siri so the mic is close to my mouth. Works great, in fact, just to test it out, I composed an email entirely hands free by starting siri then laying the phone in my lap while I drove and just told it what to do. Did the same with a text message the other day. I hate text message conversations, but in this cause I wanted to leave a quick message for my wife without interrupting whatever she was doing at work. A text lets me give her just enough info to know how important it is without messing up her workflow.

Re:Am I the only one?

[shmlco]

Kind of missing the point. Siri is about convenience.

For example, I could swipe to unlock my phone, find the clock app, open it, switch to the Timer, change the hours and minutes to one hour, then click start. Or I could say, "Wake me in an hour."

Or I could unlock my phone, find the weather app and open it, switch to Denver, and scroll down to Sat and Sun... or I could say, "What's the weather this weekend in Denver?"

Or I could again unlock my phone, find the message app and open it, switch out of my work thread, find my girlfriend's thread, switch to it, start typing, and then hit send... or I could say, "Tell Peggy I'm going to be 10 minutes late."

And the stuff like, "Remind me to call my mom when I get home?" How many taps, strokes, and typing is it going to take to set that up manually?

Every single one of those actions can be done quicker and easier with Siri. And true, there may be some places where typing is "better", in that's it's more private or more unobtrusive, but that's not true all of the time.

A bit of history...

[Anonymous Coward]

Siri was actually a private venture that was developing an app for iOS, Android and BB.

In a truly doucebag move, Apple bought the company and canned the development of the other platforms. It is was then available as an app on all iOS devices but that was withdrawn when 4GS came out.

Apple proving when you can't innovate, buy someone else who is.

Apple already allows similar apps

[SuperKendall]

Apple will never let another company release something like Siri on iOS

Oh really?

I'm sure they will.

[Charliemopps]

You can bet the NSA's iOS app can interact with Siri.

Isn't it great your phone, that you never turn off, can be turned on remotely by your carrier... who has shown multiple times they're willing to hand over whatever info the government wants with or without legal cause, can now listen to and understand not only what you say but your intent, and send this information as pain text to whomever the phone, app, apple, or carrier cares to send it?

Re:I'm sure they will.

[BitZtream]

Isn't it great your phone, that you never turn off

What? I'm not sure what shitty phone you have, but mine turns off.

Siri should also connect to BT-connected devices.

[Vandil X]

Perhaps even cars.

"Siri, set a course for the Walmart on 13th Ave."
*Course laid in and set.*
"Engage!"

Re:AAPL 401.03 Down 5.02%

[BitZtream]

Yes, because 4 million people waited an extra 3 months to buy the iPhone 4s so their projections where wrong. This is standard operating procedure in the stock market and was actually expected in advance by pretty much anyone who owned Apple stock and actually follows it.

This wasn't even a little unexpected to anyone with half a clue.

how long until...

[Anonymous Coward]

Open the pod bay doors, Hal.

Wolfram Alpha?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't that be a third party integration?

Man that 4S flamed out quickly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Barely a week and people have moved on to the next thing.

Re:Siri should also connect to BT-connected device

[mjwx]

Perhaps even cars.

"Siri, set a course for the Walmart on 13th Ave."
*Course laid in and set.*
"Engage!"

"Now approaching Baghdad, please alight with hands behind head and line up against the wall"
"This is your final destination"

Several iterations of voice recognition later...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Everyone get down, this is a robbery!"
"Siri, call 911!.."
"*stab* ... Pizza!"
"Calling 911 Pizza. Shall I make the order automatically or do you wish to do it yourself?"
"Aaaaaughghgh!"
"You have selected a) automatically. Placing an order for anchovie and pineapple pizza."

Unix Nature

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been thinking about this for a few weeks. It occurred to me that the philosophy behind "apps" is a bit like the philosophy behind Unix programs. Each program should be small, and do its job exceptionally. Neither system fulfills that promise but that's the idea.

Unix gets a lot of its power from composition and pipes. With Siri we may be seeing the first signs of some real functional power coming from iPhone applications. Hell, Apple already has AppleScript which reads fairly close to English as it is. All it would really take is a well defined language model, the right amount of user control, and a fantastic API, and we would be able to speak more complicated commands like "Siri, find me the next train from my current location to X and text Michael saying when I'll arrive." or "Siri, if it's going to rain today, find me a show time around T for movie X and buy me a ticket on Fandango, otherwise plan me a bike route from here to Y".

thoroughly appropriate cartoon

[Anonymous Coward]

http://de2.eu.apcdn.com/full/47250.jpg

clever hack

[milkmage]

http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/siri/

Follow these quick instructions, and you'll be adding tasks to Remember The Milk with Siri in no time.

Open Settings on your iPhone 4S
Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars
Tap Add Account...
Tap Other
Underneath Calendars, tap Add CalDav Account
In the 'Server' field, enter: www.rememberthemilk.com
In the 'User Name' and 'Password' fields, enter your Remember The Milk details
Tap Next
You should be returned to Mail, Contacts, Calendars, with the account added. Scroll to the bottom of the screen, and tap Default List
Tap Remember The Milk
You're done! Start asking Siri to remind you about tasks. :)