Apple has filed a patent for a “smart dock” which greatly extends the range and capabilities of Siri to give it a far bigger role in your home life.
Entitled “Smart Dock for Activating a Voice Recognition Mode of a Portable Electronic Device” the patent was filed in May last year, but only published now.
Nuance Communications — best known as the software makers of Siri — saw a slump in profits below its forecast 2014 projections, thanks to a shift to a subscription-based business model.
The move, which brings in less money upfront and instead is spread over a longer period, ensures more predictable recurring revenue — but also means a short-term hit in profit margins.
Siri continues to become more integrated into the operating system with iOS 7. We’ve already shown you how you can navigate to any of the specific settings screens on your iOS device using the clever digital assistant.
Let’s it one step further, though, and get Siri to actually DO some of the controlling of our oft-toggled settings, instead of just taking us to the specific page. Sure, you can also do this with the new iOS Control Center, but if you can’t touch your iPhone, Siri can cover it for you.
He may feel more than comfortable publishing an open letter to Tim Cook calling for Apple to engage in an immediate $150 billion buyback of shares, but (vocal) activist investor Carl Icahn has said that he would never push Apple to buy Nuance Communications Inc., maker of the software that runs the Siri feature on Apple’s iPhones.
“Siri, what are your political views?” You’d think that Siri would answer that question with a clever quip about how she doesn’t take sides, but no, she has an answer. And it’s not what you would think.
For some odd reason, asking Siri her political views will take you to Ron Paul’s Wikipedia page every time.
What do you think of Siri? Laughable gimmick, or revolutionary interface of the future? Your answer to that question may well determine how excited you get about this: the engineer who oversaw Siri is now at Samsung, building their own Internet of Things API.
One of the things I’ve always wanted to do in my car (as I drive to and fro taking my kids to and from school, music lessons, and soccer practice) is to read my emails and text messages. But taking your eyes off the road is bad, mmmkay?
You can always turn on VoiceOver before you get in the car to read your screen to you, but it involves a whole lot of tapping and different gestures, so it’s kind of impractical to use on a non-regular basis.
Luckily, in iOS 7, you can now get Siri to read your email and your iMessages to you with a simple spoken command.
The creators of The Simpsons love poking light-hearted fun at Apple and its devices, so when Siri made another guest appearance alongside our favorite animated family this weekend, she was never going to be on her best form. But that’s okay, because as you’ll see in the clip below, it makes for an hilarious joke.
Halloween is coming soon, which means you need a costume to show off how incredibly awesome you are. Maybe you’re still undecided and need a little bit of inspiration. When it comes to Apple-themed costumes there are a lot of great ideas out there and you don’t have to spend a lot of money to make them.
We’ve rounded up some of the best Apple Halloween costumes from the past few years to help you decide what you should be. Check them out:
Ok, I’ll admit it; I occasionally use Siri in the car. It’s not a perfectly hands-free system, but it is great to be able to send a quick text to let someone know I’m running late without touching the phone too much.
The other day, though, I was sitting in the car at my son’s school, waiting for the final bell to go in and get him from class. I had my iPhone set up in the car, and was sending a text to a friend. I realized that somehow, in the transition to iOS 7, I no longer had access to the Emoji keyboard.
As the iPhone was propped in it’s in-car holder (a Breffo spiderpodium), I just activated Siri, out of habit.
Thanks to the popularity of Apple’s iOS devices and the Cupertino company’s knack for product marketing, you don’t have to be a regular Siri user to recognize her voice. Two years ago today, she made her debut alongside the iPhone 4s, and she’s been our virtual personal assistant ever since.
But who is the real Siri? Who provided that voice that we’ve all become so familiar with?
Her name is Susan Bennett, and she’s been a voice actress since she was young. She recorded the Siri voices back in 2005 — six years before Apple unveiled the feature — but she had no idea they would ever end up in the iPhone.
Apple has bought a personal assistant iPhone app called Cue for between $40 and $60 million, according to a report from TechCrunch. Originally called Greplin in the App Store, Cue specialized in using data from multiple social networks and users accounts to create a daily agenda. Cue recently pulled its app saying “the Cue service is no longer available.”
Cue was doing Google Now-like contextual notifications before Now and Siri were introduced. The purchase of Cue probably has something to do with enhancing the contextual awareness of the iOS calendar and Siri itself.
iOS 7 comes with a brand new set of Siri voices. Here in the US, there’s an updated female voice, as well as a new male voice included in the latest and greatest mobile operating system.
Did you know, though, that Siri is proud of her new voice? Well, just let him know that you like her new vocal apparatus, and you’ll see a few fun new easter eggs as answers.
I’ve got a Bluetooth speaker…and I love it. But when my family and I went camping this summer I left it at home. Why? Because I wasn’t convinced that the environment it would be in was going to serve it all that well. I could have used something more rugged, and even more versatile.
I could have used the Boombot REX.
With a ruggedized ABS housing, Boombot REX goes anywhere, but it also features full fidelity stereo sound, is water-resistant and plays for up to eight hours on a single charge – it’s built tough to withstand the demands of your active lifestyle. And Cult of Mac Deals has it for 23% off the regular price – just $99.99!
Every time a new iOS device is released, there’s going to be new adopters. With new adopters come new opportunities to create apps that appeal to them. iOS 7 is an all new look for the devices, and there’s a lot of new things to learn about it. This offer from Cult of Mac Deals and iOS Centric is going to help you learn everything you need to know about iOS 7 so that you can make the best use of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.
This deal gives you a lifetime video subscription to iOS Centric – and for the low price of just $19.99. That’s a savings of 80%!
Grab your iOS7-running iPhone and activate Siri. Now say one of the following…
Change the brightness
Adjust Bluetooth
… and various combinations thereof. You’ll be rewarded with switches and sliders to adjust these settings right there on the Siri screen. Pretty good huh?
Apple is becoming a victim of its own success. It’s been several years since the company launched the iPad and revolutionized yet another product category, but we haven’t seen anything truly groundbreaking since then. Sure, we’ve had the iPad mini, the Retina MacBook Pro, and the awesome new iMac, but they’re all variations or improvements on existing products.
Now the world is clamoring for something completely new — something that’ll take off just like the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Some reports suggest it will be the Apple “iTV,” the company first television set, which is said to be in development inside the company’s Cupertino headquarters. But it’s more likely that Apple’s immediate concern is with the “iWatch,” a smartwatch powered by iOS that will bring all kinds of crazy-cool technology to your wrist.
I had suspicions Apple might be working on its own watch when it redesigned the iPod nano last year. A lot of fans used the tiny nano as a watch thanks to third-party strap accessories, and it seemed like its form factor and design were changed for a reason — to make way for something new.
We’ve been reading iWatch rumors for the past few months, so it’s time to put them all together and establish what we think we know about the iWatch so far.
Investment tycoon Carl Icahn has been bullish on Apple lately. In mid-August, Icahn unexpectedly tweeted that Icahn Enterprises, his diversified holding company, believed Apple to be “extremely undervalued.” Immediately, share prices jumped 5.6%. The next week, Icahn announced on Twitter that he and Tim Cook would be meeting in September to discuss a larger buyback program of AAPL shares.
That’s all nice, but Icahn is a business magnate, not an Apple fanboy. So what the heck is he up to here? A new theory being put forward by some investors is that Icahn has ulterior motives for his sudden Apple love affair: he wants Apple to buy Nuance, a company Icahn has a large stake in.
Google may have won a lot of new admirers thanks to its fancy Glass headwear, but Siri isn’t impressed one bit. In fact, if you try to talk to Siri about Google Glass she will just give you the cold shoulder.
A recently discovered easter egg in Siri spits back frustrated responses when you use the Glass prompt, “Okay Glass.”
Here are some of Siri’s other responses:
The most vocal and active iPhone and Android fans scoff at the notion that Moto X is the new iPhone. But it’s true.
The iPhone used to represent the most elegant, innovative and fun-to-use smartphone for everybody. That status has now been taken by Motorola’s new “Google phone,” the Moto X.
Continuing its expansion at roughly the same pace as the known universe, Facebook has just announced that they have acquired Mobile Technologies, the developer of Jibbigo, a universal translator app for Android and iOS.
Facebook released an update for its iOS app today that adds support for hashtags, an aspect of Twitter that Facebook recently added on its desktop site. Users can now add hashtags in statuses and such to filter topics.
Another notable new feature is the ability to make a restaurant reservation within the Facebook app through OpenTable. Using “Nearby Places” and official pages for restaurants that have added OpenTable integration, Facebook users can quickly make reservations without needing to open a separate Web page or app. Apple has integrated OpenTable into Siri to help make restaurant reservations as well.
TV listing information for U.S. prime-time shows and movie pages are now displayed in the app, too. Facebook notes that today’s update also introduces “faster loading and a cleaner design for timelines on iPad,” so be sure to grab it in the App Store.
Source: App Store
There’s a special delight to be had in watching upcoming movie trailers. Apple even has its own website and app dedicated to them. Watching a trailer is also a great way to find out if you want to even bother going to see a movie.
So, if you’re hanging out, looking for something to do on your iPhone or iPad, or you want to decide what movie to watch this evening, maybe you just want to ask Siri for help.
It’s pretty easy to ask her to show you a movie trailer. Here’s how.
Spike Jonze is coming out with a new movie and this time, rather than dissecting the mind of a famous movie star, Jonze’s new film, Her, takes a look at what it would be like to fall in love with an operating system like Siri.
The movie stars Joaquin Phoenix as a lonely dude with a non-ironic mustache who becomes intrigued with a new, Siri-like, advanced operating system named Samantha that’s powered by Scarlett Johansonn’s sexy vocal chords.
We’ll have to wait until November 20th to see what happens when you give Siri a soul and place her in the hands of anti-social men across the world, but here’s the first trailer to hold you over:
It feels like Apple is falling way behind. But I don’t think that’s true.
I believe Apple puts enormous brain power and good judgement into envisioning the Next Big Thing. It takes them a long time to get it to market. But once it’s there, they iterate to perfect the original vision.
In the year or two after Apple launches an iPhone or an iPad, everybody falsely believes Apple can do nothing wrong.
But then, as we get further away from the last launch and closer to the next one, everybody falsely believes Apple can do nothing right.
Completely separate and unrelated to false perceptions about Apple, Google lately has been on fire. And lately they’ve been kicking butt not only in their traditional role of algorithm-based Internet services, but also in Apple’s sandboxes—namely design and hardware.
Apple has never been the kind of company that copies out of a lack of vision. Nor have they avoided copying.
What’s great about Apple is that they develop an ultra-clear vision about how to maximize the user experience, then they make that experience happen regardless of whether the solutions have to be invented, copied or—most commonly—Apple’s own unique spin on something invented elsewhere.
There are many ways in which Apple should not copy Google. But there are six ways Apple should copy Google and, in doing so, make Apple a better company with better products.
