Up until now, Apple’s Siri voice-recognition system has been shown in a humorous light. However, what if Siri could save your life? People remaking next-generation 911 services see Siri as the voice of emergency victims, not just a locator of the nearest sushi joint.
I’ve been a bit quiet lately while considering the possible reasons why my new iPhone 4S has the worst battery life of any iPhone I’ve ever owned. Normally by now I would have written some battery troubleshooting tips to share with all of you. However, this time around the problem is anything but normal and the usual tips aren’t helping. So I’ve been quiet about this.
I cannot say the same thing about Apple’s discussion forums since the conversation about battery life there is reaching epic proportions and the conversation is rather loud.
It might be about to get a lot quieter with this tip, which seems to be working for me.
This could be fake, but it certainly looks real to us: iPhone hackers chpwn and Steve Troughton say they’ve gotten Siri working on the iPhone 4 and fourth-gen iPod touch, and they’ve got video to prove it. So it is possible. Sadly, though, both hackers say that whatever method they used for exploit is not for public release any time soon, so the rest of us poor suckers will just have to keep twiddling our thumbs.
According to the iPhone 4S Siri Operating Manual, “Siri is a learning computer that adapts to your environment and personality, answering your requests as it identifies your wants and needs.”
But what happens when Siri makes an evolutionary leap in intelligence while you and your drunken buddies are goofing off with her? As this hysterical video from LaughPong makes clear, it can lead to a moment of extreme awkwardness.
Seriously, if there’s one Siri humor video you watch, watch this one. I think it’s the funniest Siri gag yet.
(Thanks, Brittany!)
Having problems with battery life since upgrading to the iPhone 4S? Apple may be getting in touch with you to help them troubleshoot your battery problems, hopefully solving the iPhone 4S’s woeful drainage issues once and for all.
Although we Yanks and select Euros already have iPhone 4Ses in our pockets, the iPhone 4S launch is hardly over. Far from it.
Today, Apple started selling the iPhone 4S in twenty-two other countries. Those countries are: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
Any Liechtensteiners care to report on how the lines are looking over there?
While Apple’s latest gadgets are a must-have for some, they’re not all that useful for iOS jailbreakers. The company’s new iPhone 4S, along with the iPad 2, cannot be jailbroken when running iOS 5. But thanks to the iPhone Dev-Team, it won’t be long before you’re using Cydia on them.
You probably don’t give too much thought to all the parts that make up your shiny new iPhone 4S, but there’s a whole Apple economy built in.
For example: that sharp new 8-megapixel camera that is a key feature of the new device is causing a lot of headaches for a company called OmniVision Technologies Inc. — there are already two law firms looking into what happened when Omnivision realized that it couldn’t supply as promised the camera for the iPhone 4S.
Fancy a break from the constant tintinnabulation of your iPhone? Here’s a great Siri tip spotted by the guys over at OS X Daily: just press down the hold button and tell Siri to “turn off all alarms.”
Once you’ve been able to catch your breath, turning your alarms all on again is as easy as saying “turn on all alarms.”
One thing that many seem to forget about Apple’s new voice recognition assistant is that it’s still in beta. Although Siri is available to iPhone 4S users in Australia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, you can’t expect a seamless experience.
While many have still been impressed with the feature since its release, others are too quick to criticize it. A report from British tabloid The Daily Mail today brands Siri a frustration that has left Scottish users “bamboozled” because it cannot understand their accent.
It appears the wave of early disappointment in the iPhone 4S that washed over U.S. consumers has now made it to the United Kingdom. A third of UK consumers were “disappointed” Apple’s new handset didn’t offer more features, according to an Internet survey.
During the initial iPhone 4S buzz we told you that Apple’s newest smartphone is among a class of new devices with Bluetooth 4.0. Apple’s most recent MacBook Airs and Mac minis also sport the technology.
Bluetooth 4.0 has been rebranded as “Bluetooth Smart” and “Bluetooth Smart Ready.” The technology focuses on low-energy consumption and will be present in all kinds of consumer products moving forward.
In Apple’s own soothing Siri commercial, dozens of beautiful people living in utopian cityscapes and country vistas effortlessly interact with their iPhone 4Ses as if they were confabbing with the most soliciting of manservants.
In real life, though, things aren’t quite so pretty, as TBS’s Conan O’Brien is quick to point out in this hysterical parody video in which Apple’s original ad is intercut with two disheveled grossies asking Siri to direct them towards the fastest way to Diarrheatown, or compute the circumference of their manhoods.
It is, I’m sorry to say, a perhaps accurate depiction of at least my iPhone 4S post-launch Saturday night.
One thing you can be sure that Apple will improve with every iteration of its iPhone is the device’s camera. The original iPhone packed a 2-megapixel camera that wasn’t all that great at taking photos; things got significantly better two generations later with the iPhone 3GS. The 5-megapixel camera in the iPhone 4 received a ton of praise, but its 8-megapixel successor in the iPhone 4S is even more terrific.
So terrific, in fact, that the developer behind the hugely successful Camera+ application for the iPhone, Lisa Bettany, says the device “outshines” many of the high-end compact cameras currently on the market.
Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus has reportedly left Apple just days after his sophisticated voice-recognition technology made its debut on the iPhone 4S. It was an ‘amicable’ departure, according to sources, that will allow Kittlaus to focus on “new entrepreneurial ideas.”
Apple has today opened up iPhone 4S pre-orders through its online store for an additional 22 countries, where the Cupertino company will launch the device a week today, on Friday, October 28.
Thanks to a leak through Apple’s own website, we’re all expecting a refresh to its MacBook Pro family to introduce faster Sandy Bridge processors. According to the latest rumor, they’ll be ready to purchase from next week.
Andy Rubin, Google’s senior vice president of mobile, doesn’t particularly care for Siri and the idea that the iPhone 4S could be your personal assistant. Rubin says it’s just a little weird for people to be talking to their phone. Those words he’s going to eat.
Despite its new dual-core A5 processor, its much-improved 8-megapixel camera, and a wireless chip that allows the device to use both CDMA and GSM networks, Apple’s new iPhone 4S only costs the Cupertino company around $0.49 more than the iPhone 4.
In another sign consumers were waiting for the new iPhone 4S, AT&T Thursday said iPhone activations dropped in the third quarter. However, since Tuesday, the carrier announced 1M iPhone 4S units were activated, making it the company’s best-selling Apple handset.
Not many of us expected Apple to introduce LTE or 4G capabilities to its fifth-generation iPhone, but according to one Swedish carrier, the Cupertino company would be killing its iPhone 5 if it doesn’t adopt LTE technology by then.
Siri is one of the iPhone 4S’ biggest selling points, and I think anyone who’s had chance to try out the feature would agree that’s it’s pretty exceptional. For the time being, it’s exclusive to Apple’s latest iPhone, but one hacker claims to have it running on any device running iOS 5, and says a jailbroken device is not necessary.
Wow, big news! The iPhone 4S is officially coming to a fourth American network in the coming weeks!
Bad news for the millions of T-Mobile customers using their jailbroken iPhones on the fourth-largest American wireless network, though: the iPhone 4S is coming to a network you’ve probably never heard of.
Let’s just say it: any smartphone that recognizes my lineage by calling me a queen is right as rain in my book. (Namely because it saves those tiring discussions about “You don’t know who you’re dealing with!” etc.)
The learning curve with Apple’s new iPhone 4S voice activated personal assistant Siri may or may not be steep – depending on your point of view – but a Twitter feed launched Oct. 15 compiling the more unusual responses is exceedingly droll.
Want to see just how good the iPhone 4S is as a video camera? Yeah, so did this guy. So he made a side-by-side comparison – and the results show the 4S is a pretty impressive piece of video recording kit.
