Siri - page 37

Apple has gotten a fair amount of flack over Siri – most of it relating to Siri not recognizing words or phrases, misinterpreting requests, or providing incomplete or inaccurate answers. Apple is even facing a class action lawsuit over Siri not working as promised by iPhone 4S ads.

For IBM, however, the concern isn’t that Siri won’t work as advertised. Big blue is worried that Siri will work exactly as advertised and that confidential and sensitive information will leak outside IBM’s network as a result. For those reasons, the company disables Siri on the iPhones of its employees.

Reminders is a pretty powerful task list app. While it’s not a full project management suite, it does the ToDo job nicely with an easy to use user interface, location-based notification triggers, and iCloud syncing. In today’s tip, we’ll walk you through the basics of using Reminders app in a more efficient manner than just tapping away and hoping it all works out.

There’s no shortage to information out there about Apple’s HDTV plans, but most of it focuses on specs, designs, and user interface (including coverage from our source who has seen one). With the device being a near certainly, other questions are being raised. Will it be an instant hit? How different will the experience be compared to the existing Apple TV set-top box? How much revenue could it net for Apple?

According to calculations by Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, an Apple HDTV would be a huge windfall for Apple. She sees it as likely to double the money that U.S. households spend annually on Apple products within three years.

Siri won’t just joke and tell you that the best smartphone around is the one you’re using Siri on. She’ll also be ironic and tell you the iPhone 4S is the least popular smartphone on Earth.

Back in March a man sued Apple for conveying a “misleading and deceptive message” about Siri, the flagship feature of the iPhone 4S. He said that Apple’s marketing made Siri seem more magical then it actually was, and he wanted Apple to pay unspecified damages. A string of similar lawsuits also occurred, with someone claiming they couldn’t replicate the ‘Rock God’ Siri commercial in real life and another complaining about Siri not properly giving directions.

Apple has responded to the plaintiffs with a simple message: Siri is still in beta, and if you don’t like your iPhone you can always return it.

While there’s been a lot of speculation about Apple’s plans to enter the HDTV market, most of the discussion – including information from our source who has seen the device – has focused on the device itself. The form factor, pricing, manufacturing options, interface, input and remote control mechanisms, which iOS and OS X technologies could be leveraged in a TV – all these are key elements to the story of an iTV or Apple HDTV or whatever the device might be called.

These areas of speculation, however, don’t ask the most critical question: Will people buy an Apple HDTV?

According to tech research firm Strategy Analytics, the answer is yes – and it’s a pretty emphatic yes for iPhone owners.

For a very brief moment in time, the Nokia 900 reigned supreme in the eyes of Siri. When asked what the best smartphone ever is, Siri replied back that the Nokia 900 4G was the best. Apple fixed that problem pretty quickly and made sure that Siri now replies that the iPhone 4S is lord of all smartphones. Now Nokia is pissed and says that Apple is conspiring against the truth, and if Siri’s opinions on smartphones can’t be trusted, what can? It’ll be anarchy.

The iTV. The Apple HDTV. SiriTV.

Whatever you want to call it, there’s a lot of talk out there about how Apple is going to revolutionize the living room experience by releasing their own proper television set.

There’s reason enough to be skeptical of these reports. From the industry’s notoriously low margins — Sony’s losing billions on their television business — to the fact that consumers simply don’t upgrade their TVs like they do their smartphones, does it even make sense that Apple would want to release their own television set?

Sure, Steve Jobs said he had “cracked” the TV problem before he died, but who’s to say that he wasn’t talking about Cupertino’s existing set-top box, the Apple TV, a $99 puck that anyone can afford and that slurps up streaming content from the web or the iPhones, iPads and (with Mountain Lion) Macs already in the home?

I’ll say it. The Apple TV is not enough, and Apple absolutely must release a revolutionary television set in the next two years.

Why? Because no matter how popular the Apple TV becomes, it will never be essential.

Remember when Siri was saying that Nokia’s Lumia 900 was the “best smartphone ever?” Obviously it wasn’t Apple that programmed such an answer; Siri uses WolframAlpha to those kinds of questions. In this instance, it was a case of out-of-date information and poor review ranking.

Now that the whole fuss is over, you can ask Siri “What’s the best smartphone ever?” and get the correct result. Looks like Apple changed the answer. Who would have thought our iPhones would have their own egos in the year 2012.

Instacast, undoubtedly the best podcast manager for iOS, got a great update this week that deserves a place in our must-have apps roundup. We’ve also got an impressive voice translation tool that you just have to try, a social weather app that’s more reliable than the weatherman, plus major updates for Pocket and Google+.

During a press conference in Shanghai this week, Foxconn president Terry Gou finally confirmed that the company is making preparations to begin production of the upcoming Apple HDTV. Production is yet to begin, so you may not see the set before Christmas. But Apple certainly plans to bring Steve Jobs’s set to market.

When you build a robot or an artificially intelligent machine, there’s always going to be a fear that one day it will turn against you. That’s what Siri has done to Apple today, labeling one of the iPhone’s biggest rivals, the Nokia Lumia 900, the “best smartphone ever.”

One of my favorite jailbreak tweaks for the iPhone 4S (before I updated to iOS 5.1 and lost my jailbreak) was called Lingual, which enabled Siri to connect to Microsoft’s Bing Translate API and immediately translate words or phrases into a number of different languages.

Thanks to iTranslate Voice, you can now get the same functionality and more for any iPhone from the App Store. This excellent $0.99 app listens to you speak, then quickly translates your sentences into one of 31 languages. It’s super quick and incredibly accurate.

We have a source who claims to have seen a prototype Apple high-definition television set in action, indicating that Apple is readying the long-awaited device for market.

According to our source, who has asked to remain strictly anonymous, the Apple HDTV looks like Apple’s current lineup of LED-backlit Cinema Displays but is “much bigger.” It has a built-in iSight camera for making free FaceTime video conference calls. And it has Siri, the iPhone 4S’s voice-activated virtual assistant.

This morning Samsung announced their newest high-end Android phone, the Samsung Galaxy S III. With a release date of May 29th, the new phone comes with a lot of crazy new features, like Smart Stay, that uses facial recognition to determine if you’re looking at it, and if not, it’ll turn the screen off. But topping the list of awesome new features is the “innovative” voice recognition feature. It’s innovative because you can say things like, “Hi Mr. Galaxy phone, what’s the weather gonna be like today?” and S Voice will pop-up a screen that looks exactly like Apple’s Siri feature does on the iPhone 4S.

Keep it up Samsung.

Source: Sebastiaan de With

Via: Rene Ritchie

Siri is already about as simple as it gets, but that hasn’t stopped freelance journalist and TV host Marc Saltzman from creating Siri For Dummies. The 192-page book “shows you all the cool things Siri can do for you, so you can get the most from your iPhone’s voice-activated personal assistant.”

Rush Limbaugh’s iPhone 4S has been hacked. Maybe it’s Obama, maybe it’s those pesky Anonymous guys, or even that teenager down the street who just wants the lulz, but one thing for certain is that Rush Limbaugh, one of America’s most polarizing political figures, had some crazy stuff happen to him while using Siri on his drive to work this week, and he thinks the main culprit is Obama’s minions trying to give him the spooks.

I wish we were creative enough to make this up, but it’s a “true” story…. if by true, you mean that Rush Limbaugh actually said something this wacky. On his show earlier this week Rush told his listeners how he was using Siri on his way to work, per usual, when he started getting some crazy replies from Apple’s virtual assistant, including this winner: “Obama’s minions are taking over and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

The entire story is pretty hilarious well worth the read, and we got the full transcript after the break.

A couple of new ads for the iPhone 4S surfaced earlier today. Featuring none other than the one and only Samuel L. Jackson, the first 30-second spot highlights Siri, the new iPhone’s loving digital assistant. The second ad stars the lovely Zooey Deschanel. Both ads seem to be in rotation for all three U.S. iPhone carrier partners — AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

Apple appears to be spearheading a new ad campaign featuring high profile celebrities and the iPhone 4S, but so far these two ads are the only ones that have been spotted. Here they are in full HD, courtesy of Apple…

Apple’s App Store approval process is a mysterious thing. Sometimes the Cupertino overlords can be incredibly stringent about the guidelines an app has to adhere to in order to be approved for sale onthe App Store, and other times we’re all left scratching our heads wondering how on earth an app like this made it through.

Siri knockoffs are nothing new, of course. In fact, they’ve been a pretty common occurrence in the iOS App Store ever since Apple unveiled the digital assistant alongside the iPhone 4S last October. We’ve seen apps like Evi that piggyback off Siri’s success, but a relatively new app has seen incredible success by riding Siri’s coattails all the way to the top of the App Store charts.

The best part? Not only does it look heavily — ahem — inspired by Siri, even the developer doesn’t know how it got approved.

While you may be used to Siri’s familiar female voice, people around the world hear something different on a daily basis. Siri has many voices in different countries, ranging from foreign accents to even male voices. Here’s a compilation we put together of Siri’s many voices all across the globe.

Ever since Apple integrated Twitter into iOS 5, many have been clamoring to also have Facebook integration for posting status updates and photos anywhere in the OS. There was reportedly some drama between Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs over the Ping debacle and iOS 5 integration. The two companies just can’t seem to get along.

Whether Facebook ever makes its way to iOS or not, a new jailbreak tweak brings integration with the social network giant right now. Fusion lets you simultaneously post to Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and even MySpace.

Voice Dication, or Voice Dictation – Voice To SMS, Email, Facebook, Twitter And Other Apps to give it its full name, is a voice control app from Europe, designed to offer something vaguely Siri-like to those of us still stuck in the Dark Ages on our pre-4S iPhones.

Does it work? Well yes, actually it does. Better than expected.

A tweak called SiriSports gives you access to MLB, NBA and NHL game times and scores in Siri on your jailbroken iPhone 4S. Developed by Evan Coleman, SiriSports requires no configuration and is available for free in Cydia.

“Did the Knicks win last night?” “Are the Yankees winning?” These types of question can be answered once you have SiriSports installed.

Most people seem roughly pretty happy with Siri, but you’ve got to admit: the name is a little bit un-Apple-like. Modern Apple product names tend to be strongly evocative of what the product actually does, or what it looks like. The iPod, for example, looks like something out of Kubrick’s 2001. iCloud stores your documents in the cloud. The iPad is a digital pad of paper. And so on. Compared to Apple’s usual flair for product names, Siri’s name isn’t self-explanatory.

Looks like Steve Jobs agreed. He reportedly wasn’t happy with the name Siri, but couldn’t ever figure out a better name before the iPhone 4S launched.

For some iPhone 4S users, Siri is a novelty that quickly wears off within a week or two of unwrapping the handset. But believe it or not, 87% of iPhone 4S users are still using the intelligent assistant at least once a month, according to a new study. Not many of them are using it to its full potential, however.