My wife feels like I've shacked up with another woman--I'm that
in love with Siri. But my wife isn't too upset, because Apple's iOS
personal digital assistant has given me more time to spend with my
family. I've been able to get work done during times when I
normally could not. And that's the part that tickles my CIO spider
sense, which tells me: Feldman, this is going to change the way
that IT delivers service.
I had upgraded to an iPhone 4S mainly because my 3G had run out
of steam. I wasn't too excited by the prospect of Siri. Many of us
have used Dragon Dictation and voice dialing. So what, right?
That's like saying AltaVista was all the Web ever needed with
search. That's how big I think Siri is--Google search big.
Siri, unlike segmented voice recognition, integrates lots of
services. In other words, instead of having to mess around with
buttons to take a note with Dragon Dictate, and then copy it, then
paste it into my notebook, I can just say: "Siri, write a note."
Response: "OK, boss, what do you want it to say?" Then it pops it
into my notebook. Done.
This is huge for me. I normally think up ideas at inconvenient
times, while driving in the car or running on the trail. I have to
stop, take my note, then get started again, a process that consumes
my most precious commodity: time. Siri takes dictation while my
hands and eyes are otherwise engaged. And because I don't have to
stop to take a note, I'm more likely to take more notes. Indeed,
Siri took a lot of this column while I was on the treadmill, which
probably saved me an hour or two of desk time.
Siri has her warts, for sure. I apparently exceeded the app's
time limit while dictating a part of this column, and Siri quietly
discarded the entire note! I'm going to write her up for that one.
It also exhibits the usual voice dial approximation problems, most
hilariously, when she decided to call one of my old bosses on his
cell phone when I asked her to call my office. (I was able to
cancel the call via my headset.)
But compared with the technology up until now, which has been
horrible, Siri makes mistakes I can live with, especially as the
app adds value beyond just voice dialing and dictation.
One morning, when I was groggy and hadn't figured out if I was
going to run outside or hit the treadmill, I asked: "Siri, when's
the sun going to rise?" The response: "The sun rises at 7:35 a.m.,
boss." Holy cow. Siri may have had to Google that query, but I
assure you she did it much faster than I ever could have. One
evening, when my kids were doing their homework, they asked Siri to
solve a calculus derivative of a quadratic equation (please don't
tell our school district). Siri came right up with the answer,
along with the graph.
I've been showing this app around work, and I see the wheels
turning. Managers are thinking of ways they could eliminate some
text entry and time-consuming lookups. One of my peers asked if
Siri can read text messages. Doubtfully, I said I didn't know, but
when I said "Siri, read me my last text message." everyone in the
room was blown away when the app did.
We've all been in a situation when a time-sensitive text message
has come in while we were driving. Maybe the exit is 10 minutes
away. In some cases, that distance could mean the difference
between a deal or no deal. In the world of Siri, it means you can
respond by saying, "Siri, send a text message." Sure, you might
have to repeat it once or twice, because the technology is still
maturing. But Apple (this time through acquisition and integration)
has changed the game once again.
Mark my words: Siri will be as big or bigger than the iPad. It's
the beginning of actually useful natural language processing and
associated automation.
Jonathan Feldman is a contributing editor for
InformationWeek and director of IT services for a rapidly growing
city in North Carolina.
Source:
InformationWeek USA