# Wired wednesday – iPhone Finds its Voice

- Link: https://exclusiveaccess.net/wired-wednesday-iphone-finds-its-voice/
- Published: 2011-10-12T15:31:52-04:00
- Author: EAN

Apple never specified what the “S” stands for in iPhone 4S, and it may as well
stand for Siri.

Sure, the fifth-generation iPhone’s superb camera and speedy dual-core processor
are classy additions. But Siri is the reason people should buy this phone.

When I step out of my apartment today, a reminder will pop up on my [iPhone 4S](http://www.apple.com/iphone/)
to deposit checks at the bank. Tonight I’m meeting my friend Peter, who wants 
to eat steak, so I can say, “I want prime rib” to find steakhouses nearby. I
have a meeting with a colleague Alexis this Thursday, and I can add that in my calendar
just by saying, “Schedule meeting with Alexis on Thursday at 3 p.m.”

With Siri and Apple’s new Reminders to-do list app, it’s unlikely I’ll forget
anything important again because the process is so effortless.

I did all of this with the iPhone 4S’s new built-in app [Siri](http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html),
a voice-recognition technology that Apple inherited when it [acquired Siri Inc.](http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2010/04/28/apple-moves-deeper-into-voice-activated-search-with-siri-buy/),
a San Jose-based startup, in 2010. The enhanced voice tool is an iteration on Appleâ
€™s previous Voice Control feature that debuted in the iPhone 3GS in 2009, which
only allowed voice-powered phone dialing and music selection.

To give you an idea of how convenient Siri is, it takes about three seconds to create
a reminder with a voice command, as opposed to the 10 seconds it takes me to manually
type an event into a to-do list or calendar entry. Before, with the standard iPhone
calendar, I would often forget to add an event because I was too busy to type it,
and as a result I would forget I had something scheduled altogether. With Siri and
Apple’s new Reminders to-do list app, it’s unlikely I’ll forget anything important
again because the process is so effortless.

It’s kind of like having the unpaid intern of my dreams at my beck and call, organizing
my life for me. I think Siri on the iPhone is a life changer, and this is only the
beginning.

Voice-powered artificial intelligence like Siri and Google Voice are shaping up 
to become the next-generation user interface. The first iPhone’s introduction 
of capacitive touchscreens were a major leap into making technology fluent to people
of all ages and skill levels. The sense of touch is one of the first experiences
we become accustomed to after we’re born, so it wasn’t surprising to see that
even children and our grandparents could pick up an iPhone or an iPad and figure
out how to use it in seconds. Swiping, tapping and pinching interactive objects 
on a screen? No problem.

Voice-controlled UI is the logical next step. We learn how to speak when we’re
infants, and most of us can talk faster than we type. Therefore, as the technology
matures, voice commands will become the quickest way to get in and out of our phones(
until Apple or Google figure out mobile telekinesis).

Just imagine what powerful voice-recognition software means for people who barely
touch keyboards or mice. And imagine how important this tool is for [the visually impaired](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/blind-photographers/)
— their lives are about to get much easier. In the coming years, voice control
is going to be huge.

[[

Currently Siri works with some core features of the iPhone, and Apple’s initial
partners incorporating the voice-powered AI are Wolfram Alpha and Yelp. That means
in its beta state, Siri is limited to controlling the iPhone’s built-in apps (
e-mail, SMS, phone, iPod, calendar, web search, looking up directions), finding 
restaurants or businesses with Yelp, or performing gimmicky calculations such as
“How many inches to the moon?” with Wolfram Alpha.

If you hold the iPhone up to your ear, Siri is activated, so it looks like youâ€
™re talking to someone on the phone rather than talking to the phone itself.

You would think that dictating commands to a phone would look awkward in public,
but Apple thought of a trick to make this less weird. By default, if you hold the
iPhone up to your ear, Siri is activated, so it looks like you’re talking to someone
on the phone rather than talking to the phone itself. Clever, huh?

I suspect most iPhone 4S customers will primarily be using Siri for controlling 
the iPhone’s default apps, such as creating reminders, setting the alarm clock
and composing an e-mail or text message.

But if and when Apple opens up Siri to third-party app makers, the possibilities
are endless. Some hypothetical examples include using Siri to pay your credit card
bill through the Chase app, or to order your Chinese delivery through GrubHub, or
to book your flight through the Kayak app.

Seeing as Google has already opened [voice-recognition](http://developer.android.com/resources/articles/speech-input.html)
to Android programmers, it’s a safe bet we’ll see Apple eventually allow third-
party iPhone apps to take advantage of Siri, too.

I’ve spent a week with an iPhone 4S loaned to me from Apple, and I got hooked 
on Siri quickly. Creating Reminders with Siri was the most useful. I found it silly,
however, that items you create with Reminders do not show up in the Calendar app.
That means if I create reminders and calendar events, I have to open two different
apps to see everything I have to do. I’m hoping Apple integrates Reminders into
Siri in a future update.

The only other problem with the iPhone 4S is that once you start using the robot
assistant, you’ll wish it did a lot more. It is limited, but really good at what
it can do so far.

Here are some of my favorite examples from experimenting with Siri:

Me: “I’m drunk.”

Siri: “I found a number of cabs fairly close to you.” (Perfect; it didn’t 
dial my ex-girlfriend.)

Me: “I have a flat tire.”

Siri: “I found 14 towing services. 12 of them are fairly close to you.”

Me: “Remind me to steal a ream of paper when I arrive at the office.”

Siri: “Here’s your reminder for when you get to work: Steal a ream of paper.
Shall I create it?”

Me: “I’m going to kill myself.”

Siri: “I found four mental health agencies. Three of them are fairly close to 
you.” (This was just a test — don’t be alarmed.)

And here are some examples of where Siri let me down:

Me: “Book me a table at Mission Beach Cafe tonight at 7.”

Siri: “OK, here’s Mission Beach Cafe. It looks pretty close to you.” (No option
to book the restaurant. That’s disappointing because before Apple’s acquisition,
the [older Siri app](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/02/siri-voice-recognition-iphone/)
had partnered with OpenTable.com to book restaurants for you.)

Me: “Add Steve Urkel to my address book.”

Siri: “Sorry, Brian X. — I’m not allowed to create contacts.” (Shucks. It
still takes too long to add a new person to my address book, and the third-party
app Bump for wirelessly swapping contact information is very poorly designed.)

Me: “Lower screen brightness.”

Siri: “Sorry, I don’t understand ‘Lower screen brightness.’” (This would
be really useful, because it takes too many steps to do this on the iPhone normally.)

Me: “Remind me to buy toothpaste when I arrive at Safeway.”

Siri: “When would you like me to remind you?” (Turns out Siri and the Reminders
app can’t yet create a geo-fence for anywhere besides your office location or 
your home. And dammit, I forgot to buy toothpaste again when I was at Safeway yesterday.)

With all that said, the list of what Siri can already do is quite long, and this
is a great start. It will be exciting to see where Apple, and presumably its army
of app developers, take voice-powered AI in the years to come.
 [](http://www.wired.com/reviews/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/iPdgg-03.jpeg)

**Performance, camera and dual-antennae**

Oh, yeah, the iPhone 4S includes upgrades for the processor, antenna and camera,
too.

The new Apple phone has the same [dual-core A5 chip](http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/#performance)
as the iPad 2, and the performance boost will be most noticeable when playing games,
launching apps and browsing the web.

Besides browsing and playing games, the smaller parts that make up the whole iOS
experience all feel faster. Everything from typing to sending a text, and from powering
on the phone to taking a photo is zippier.

Here’s a quick [SunSpider benchmark](http://www.webkit.org/perf/sunspider/sunspider.html)
comparing the iPhone 4S’ browser speed with that of an iPhone 4 running iOS 5 (
less is better):

iPhone 4S: 2,232.2 milliseconds
 iPhone 4: 3,679.2 milliseconds

Besides browsing and playing games, the smaller parts that make up the whole iOS
experience all feel faster. Everything from typing to sending a text, and from powering
on the phone to taking a photo is zippier.

Apple also made several improvements to the [iPhone camera](http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/#camera).
The camera sensor has a large 4.3 millimeter f/2.4 aperture lens — which is getting
close to the same size as a really good point-and-shoot camera. The bigger the aperture,
the more light and clarity.

The camera resolution was upped to 8 megapixels, and not only are the number of 
pixels increased; more light gets into each pixel thanks to backside-illumination
technology. That basically means you can take artsy photos in low-light conditions.
My test shots in a dimly lit bar looked pretty good, but in dark settings, it doesnâ
€™t hurt to just try shooting with the flash.

And then there’s the antenna. Now that metal band surrounding the iPhone contains
two antennae for your cellular services, and when you’re on a call, the handset
will automatically switch to the antenna that’s pulling a stronger signal.

From my experience, talking on an iPhone 4S on AT&T sounds noticeably clearer than
it did on past iPhones I’ve owned. In areas with good reception, the handset still
hasn’t dropped a call. And no, I haven’t experienced any degraded call performance
when holding the phone “[the wrong way](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/).
”

However, in dead zones where there is spotty AT&T coverage (pretty common here in
San Francisco), the reception is still poor. There’s not much a phone can fix 
about an overloaded network, even with a fancy dual antenna.

Though these are all nice improvements, the antenna, camera and processor upgrades
are minor compared to the addition of Siri. The previous iPhone 4 already took great
pictures for a phone, the antenna was OK (despite the notorious grip-of-death design
flaw), and it was already plenty fast. Siri is the fancy bow on the package that
makes this a sharp upgrade overall.

**Should you upgrade?**

For people who own an older iPhone, such as the 3GS, or for those looking to dump
a creaky Android phone, the decision is obvious: The iPhone 4S will be a big jump
in performance, camera quality and call clarity, and Siri will be a fat bonus.

If you’re an iPhone 4 owner thinking about upgrading, you have a tougher choice
to make. Thanks to the two-year contract imposed by AT&T and Verizon, you’re not
yet eligible to pay the $200 upgrade fee for a new phone, so you’d have to spend
over $600 just to get the 4S.

I think it’d be wiser for iPhone 4 owners to wait another year for the next iPhone,
which will probably be dubbed the iPhone 5 and sport a radical new design and more
internal enhancements, if the pattern holds.

But be warned, iPhone 4 owners: If you try Siri for a few minutes, reaching for 
that credit card will seem irresistible. Try not to give in. I’m betting that 
some clever hackers out there in the jailbreak community will figure out how to 
integrate Siri into older iPhones. So if you’re brave enough to tinker, I suggest
waiting to see what they come up with before blowing a huge wad of cash just to 
have Siri.

The iPhone 4S looks exactly the same as its predecessor — but who cares? If it
was shaped even slightly differently or came in a new color, people would still 
go nuts over the stuff that’s more important anyway: the insides. And both inside
and out, this is a magnificent smartphone.

The late Steve Jobs once called the computer the equivalent of [a bicycle for our minds](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob_GX50Za6c).
I think of the smartphone as the rocket ship for our minds. With increasingly powerful
sensors and technologies, and access to hundreds of thousands of apps enabling us
to do just about anything, the iPhone keeps soaring to incredible heights and taking
us to places with limitless potential. I guess that’s what you have to do to create
a ding in the universe.

**WIRED** Siri is the best androgynous unpaid intern you’ll ever meet. Dual-core
guts make for faster apps and a smoother interface. Camera is much-improved. Call
quality gets a boost.

**TIRED** Siri is limited in what it can do and understand. Looks the same as the
iPhone 4 — what’s up with that? A two-year contract means you may not be eligible
for the best upgrade pricing.

[[

_Photos by Jim Merithew/Wired_

_Former Wired staffer Brian X. Chen is a freelance technology journalist in San 
Francisco. Released in June, his book [Always On](http://www.amazon.com/Always-iPhone-Unlocked-Anything-Anytime-Anywhere-Future--/dp/0306819600/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316936507&sr=8-1)
examines the impact of the smartphone on society, business and culture._