Siri - page 32

Scott Forstall was destined for big things at Apple. Originally part of Steve Jobs’s NeXT team, he spent 15 years with the Cupertino company and spearheaded its hugely successful iOS software division. Many believed he would succeed Tim Cook as CEO later on, but on Monday, but the chances of that happening looked impossible when Apple announced Forstall was on his way out.

The news came as a shock to us all, but it seems there are several reasons why Apple had to remove Forstall from its executive team — it seems refusing to apologize for the whole Maps debacle wasn’t the only one.

No time to type out a status update on Facebook or send a genius Tweet? Sometimes, inspiration for an amazing update to one of the ubiquitous social networks supported in the latest iOS 6 on Apple’s portable devices happens on the fly. Even while driving! What’s a safe-driving-no-texting individual to do?

Why, have Siri post to Twitter or Facebook, of course!

Siri is a perfectly lovely digital assistant, helping us get sports scores, figure out whether we need an umbrella or not, or decide which movie to watch, and whether our friends are nearby to watch it with.

Yet Siri can, at times, just be a little loud. If you want to whisper your question to her in a quiet environment, she may, in fact, shout the answer back to you, even if you have your iPhone on silent mode. Turns out, Siri has her own independent volume controls, which can be adjusted for when you’re in those “keep quiet” situations. Or, I suppose, turn it up in the super loud ones.

Apple has tapped Amazon executive William Stasior to run Siri, the Cupertino company’s digital assistant. Stasior has been responsible for running Amazon’s A9 search/advertising unit, and his impressive CV has attracted Apple’s eye.

Siri co-founders Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer were hired by Apple when Siri was purchased back in 2010. Since then, both Kittlaus and Cheyer have left Apple with a Siri-sized hole for someone to fill. Stasior looks like the man for the job.

While the App Store has listed Things as an “amazing app” for iPhone 5 for the past week or so, the app didn’t actually support the new handset’s larger display. But it does now, thanks to a brand new update, which also delivers the ability to create new to-dos using Siri.

With iOS 6, Siri gained some new super powers – like the ability to check on sports scores, make restaurant reservations, even find out info on movies. With  those new powers she also has some opinions about movies too.

For instance, ask Siri, “What’s Blade Runner about?” and she’ll shoot back by saying “It’s about intelligent assistants wanting to live beyond their termination dates. That doesn’t sound like too much to ask.” She does it for other robot movies too.

Siri has been updated along with the rest of the iOS in the new iteration from Apple. The personal voice assistant can take dictation, help you plan your wardrobe around the weather, keep track of your buddies, inform you on all sorts of sports information, and help you choose the best movie to go see, all using basic spoken English.

Of course, it helps to know what kinds of questions and commands you can actually say to produce the desired results. Here’s five things you can do with Siri the right way, so you can spend less time repeating yourself and more time going to those movies and meeting up with those friends.

The weekend is a great time to hit the theater, especially if it’s cold and rainy out. Siri has been updated in iOS 6 to provide a wealth of information on movies, including local showtimes, movie reviews, and even specific information about movies themselves, like actors, directors, and ratings. There’s a ton of stuff that Siri can help you find. But how do you know what kinds of questions are even possible? Well, you can start here with the following types of questions.

I’ve been told that sports are a popular pastime. Some of my best friends love to keep track of sports scores, team rankings, and individual player statistics. If I get pulled into a conversation about sports with any of them soon, I’m totally pulling out my iPhone 5, and I’ll be able to keep pace with their conversation. Or, at least throw out tasty facts that will totally impress them.

Siri is a great personal assistant, helping you create reminders, text friends, and the like. But Siri also has a way of interpreting ordinary questions about things like, yes, sports. Here are some of the best ways to ask her for the latest updates on your favorite teams and sports.

Want to know where your friend, Scott, is? How about where your girlfriend is? What’s your grandmother’s address again? Siri can answer these questions (and a bunch more), but you’ll need to set things up a bit on your iPhone, first. Here’s how

Remember Jonathan Mann? He became popular on YouTube for writing and uploading a brand new song each and every day, and he’s famous among Apple fans for writing a song about the iPhone 4’s Antennagate, which was played at a special press event held by Apple to discuss the issue. He also did a duet with Siri, which we covered back in October.

Mann’s now back with Apple’s digital assistant for a special happy birthday song.

The iPhone 5 and iOS 6 have brought a new, more powerful Siri into the limelight. We thought it might be time to start looking for ways to best query the spunky digital assistant for a variety of tasks, like checking the weather, for example.

Being able to use your voice to find out the forecast for the next several days is a fantastic feature that more folks might use, if only they knew the right way to ask. While Siri definitely handles natural-language questions with aplomb, you can help her understand your intent better by using the following types of questions.

As a new owner of an iPhone 5 that can take dictation, I’m still playing around with Siri and the various places and times that it makes sense to use my voice instead of the keyboard. Obviously, a crowded, quiet room is not the best place to speak to my iPhone, but in the car certainly is. It’s even better that I’m not texting with my fingers in the car, either, since that’s just plain dangerous. For a quick message, now, I’m gonna use the iOS 6 dictation feature.

Apple’s got an entire Knowledge Base article on how to best use dictation on your iOS 6 iPhone 5 or iPhone 4S, and as I read through it, it struck me how much easier it will be to respond to text messages should they come in while I’m not in a place to easily type a reply. One thing that surprised me was the recommendation to speak punctuation aloud.

Editor’s Note: This review has been stickied to the top of the front page. There are likely new posts below it.

After months of testing, iOS 6 — the most recent major update to Apple’s mobile operating system — is now here. Featuring an entirely new Maps, a new Passbook app, some impressive new updates to Siri (who also comes to the iPad with this release), a great Do Not Disturb feature and a lot more, iOS 6 is a great refurbishment of the world’s best mobile OS. But all is not perfect, and in at least one way, iOS 6 might prove disappointing to people upgrading from iOS 5.

Over the last few months, we’ve been putting iOS 6 to the test on our iPhones and iPads. Here’s what we thought.

iOS 6 comes with a host of new and improved features for us all to play with. We’ll be messing about in there over the next several weeks, helping you find the hidden tips, tricks, and features of iOS 6. Today, however, we’d like to show you the ten killer tricks we’ve found in iOS 6 to date.

Some of these tips may seem simple, while others may not be applicable to your own personal situation. Regardless, we hope that we can show you the coolest tips and tricks for your new iOS device, whether it’s a new iPhone 5, a new iPad, or anything that comae out before; iOS 6 will support the iPhone 3GS and up, the iPad and up, and the iPod touch third generation and up, so have at it!

Today, three months after its first preview at WWDC, iOS 6 has been released to the public and is now available to download via iTunes. We’ve already presented you with a comprehensive guide to everything that’s new — big and small — but which of those features really stands out?

So that you can jump into iOS 6 and quickly start using its killer new features, we’ve compiled a list of our top ten for you to check out. These may not necessarily be the biggest features Apple has introduced, but we’re confident that once you start using them, you’ll agree that they’re the best.

We’ve all been itching to get our hands on iOS 6 since it got its first unveiling at WWDC back in June, and today, three months after that announcement, the software finally gets its public debut. Apple’s packed a ton of new features into this update, including some major new features like Map and Passbook, plus some enhancements to existing apps and features, such as new Siri capabilities and a VIP inbox in Mail.

Apple’s been promoting some of these features on its website, but there are tons you may not have heard about. With that said, here’s your comprehensive guide to everything that’s new in iOS 6.

Apple has finally released iOS 6 to the public, more than three months after the software was first previewed at WWDC. It brings more than 200 new features to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, including Apple’s brand new Maps and Passbook apps, Facebook integration, FaceTime over cellular, enhancements to Siri, Mail, and Phone, and lots, lots more.

OmniFocus for iPad just got a big old update, and it adds two huge features, along with the usual tweaks (and in this case, iOS 6 compatibility).

Now, iPad users can enter tasks using Siri, and everyone can take advantage of TextExpander Touch support.

Apple’s clearly very proud of Siri, and so despite its shortcomings, it’s unlikely you’ll see it disappearing anytime soon. In fact, it’s more likely that you’ll be seeing Siri a lot more in future. It seems inevitable that the voice-controlled assistant will one day come to the Mac, and when it does, there’s a chance you’ll be able to control iTunes using only your voice.

At least that’s what Apple’s latest patent filing suggests.

Apple’s hardware product lines might be clean and sparse to the point of obsession, but behind the scenes it’s another story. Take iOS 6, for example. While yesterday’s Apple keynote showed off plenty of new features, many of them are location dependent. And I’m not talking about maps here – many features are switched off outside of the U.S, and just which one’s you can use depends on the country you’re in.

Apple’s beloved digital assistant is up to no good again. Nick Bilton of The New York Times tweeted a fun screenshot just moments ago. When asked about the iPhone 5, Siri redirects to Apple’s “fabulous website” for more information. As we already told you, Apple’s online search engine leaked the iPhone 5 earlier today.

Less than an hour until the keynote starts!

Source: @nickbilton

Tim Cook and the gang at Apple were in full force at yesterday’s keynote. Yes, the iPhone 5 was announced, but there was so much more than that. EarPods, Lighting, crazy new iSight cameras, iTunes, and much more.

The keynote was packed with info, but we’ve broken everything down  into delicious bite-size information nuggets so you can know all of the essentials of what happened today without having to read 3000 different blog posts.

Here’s everything that Apple announced at today’s keynote:

Former Siri CEO Dag Kittlaus left Apple last year, and now the revolutionary platform’s other co-founder has reportedly left Apple as well. According to Bloomberg, Siri co-founder Adam Cheyer recently left Apple for unknown reasons.

Apple bought Siri back in April of 2010 for a rumored $200 million, and Siri has since become a staple feature of the iPhone 4S and iPad. Given the imminent public release of the new and improved Siri in iOS 6, Cheyer’s departure is interestingly timed.

Audience, the company behind the EarSmart technology used to power Siri in the iPhone 4S, has issued a statement insisting it is “unlikely” Apple will use its technology in the iPhone 5. It helped Apple develop part of the A5 chip that enables the iPhone to filter out background noise while you’re using Siri, but it seems Apple no longer needs its help.