The voice recognition performs well, it's well integrated, it's context-aware, it's location-aware, it has some killer come backs… but do people actually use it?
I've been living with Siri on the iPhone 4S for around 2 months now and I've concluded that it's very hard to get into using it beyond the obvious novelty applications.
So why is this?
- I forget Siri is there. After a decade of mobile use, doing things manually is a tough habit to break.
- Siri works best if you phrase requests in a certain way, which takes time to learn.
- Siri doesn't seem to save much time. Certainly not enough to make up for the initial time investment.
- In many public situations, I don't want to make requests by talking out loud.
- Siri is fallible. You can't rely on it to work first time.
- I often seem to hear the following message: 'I will only search for businesses in the US using US English', whether I'm searching for a business or not. This also gives me the impression that Siri doesn't work properly outside the US.
If this technology is the future, then why is it so hard to start using it?
This issue aside, I am determined to give Siri another chance. I'm aiming to spend a week using Siri as much as possible... can these initial problems be overcome? I'll let you know...
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