As most probably know by now, Siri is Apple’s iPhone 4S digital assistant featuring uncanny voice recognition and conversational interaction. Here’s how Apple describes it/him/her:
Siri on iPhone 4S lets you use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, and more. Ask Siri to do things just by talking the way you talk. Siri understands what you say, knows what you mean, and even talks back. Siri is so easy to use and does so much, you’ll keep finding more and more ways to use it.
But Siri wasn’t always Apple’s crown jewel and, as an independent company, released an iOS app in early 2010. We briefly touched on it then when Robert Scoble declared Siri the future of the web. Given prior Borg-like Apple acquisitions, I wasn’t particularly floored when the folks from Cupertino acquired Siri just a few short months after launch. But given it’s deep iPhone 4S integration and tent pole marketing, in retrospect, Scoble’s enthusiasm was warranted and I was wrong.
But enough of the historical play by play. When Siri was originally released, I did what any 12 year old boy geek blogger would have and asked it a series of ridiculous questions back in February, 2010. Being curious how Siri has matured in the intervening months, I recruited fellow blogger Andru Edwards of Gear Live to replicate a few of my inquiries on his iPhone 4S…
I’m not quite sure what conclusions we can draw from this, other than our neighborhoods may have differing strengths. But for more inspired Siri shenanigans, check out the research conducted by This Is My Next and Matt Gemmell.
