Opinion: Siri Will Change the Way We Interact With Our Phones

The idea of talking to my phone, not to another person through my phone, has always seemed nonsensical. What is there to gain? Will I be able to crank out e-mails and text messages faster? Is voice searching Google really that necessary of a feature? The answer, so far, has been no.

Last Tuesday Apple held its’ annual media event where they unveiled the iPhone 4S and a personal voice assistant called Siri. Even though vintage sci-fi shows like Star Trek depicted voice control as an integral part of a forthcoming technological age, it still just hasn’t caught on. Two reasons why it hasn’t caught on include the lack of seamless integration into the OS and the inability for the software to fundamentally understand what you’re saying, not just listen and paste that onto a screen. Apple looks to change this with Siri.

Siri is able to understand what you’re saying to it. If I want to check the weather, I’m not required to always say “Siri, what’s the weather forecast for today?”. Instead I can talk to Siri like I would another human being. “Siri, will it be cold today?” or “Siri, do I need a raincoat today?” are two examples which will give you the same answer. In my opinion, this is extremely powerful. Siri literally has intelligence. With full integration into Yelp and Wolfram Alpha, the possibilities are almost endless. As an engineering college student I undoubtedly have a lot of math related questions. If I’m not around a classmate I can now ask Siri my questions and it will search Wolfram’s archives for the answers. Apple also says that Siri learns your accent and the way you speak as time goes on. The true test, however, is asking Siri what happened to the iPhone 5.

Unlike the voice control capabilities of Android, Siri is seamlessly integrated into iOS. No matter what you are doing you are only a split second away from having complete access to Siri. Simply hold down the home button and Siri comes out of hiding with its’ eerie robotic voice (something that I hope improves over time). The main problem with the current implementation of voice control is that it’s literally hidden from the user. The majority of smartphone users don’t know how to access voice control and upon learning don’t feel compelled to keep using it. In Android you have different implementation of voice control throughout the entire OS; it isn’t seamless and can really confuse the end user. Siri is actually one of the easiest features to access in iOS.

As of now, Siri is still in beta. But it looks damn good for a beta. When I first heard about Apple pushing a voice-controlled personal assistant as their killer feature, I wasn’t even remotely interested. As a long time Android user I’ve hardly used voice control, although I’ve experimented with it quite a bit. It just doesn’t improve the core mobile experience at all. Needless to say, I’ve had a change of heart since last Tuesday. A lot of people are giving Siri a hard time just because Apple didn’t unveil an iPhone 5, not because the feature itself isn’t good. After I moved on from the lack of an iPhone 5 announcement I really began to see the beauty of Siri.

Our first big technological transition was from non-touch to full-touch devices. Our next big transition will take us from full-touch devices to voice and thought controlled devices. In other words, there will be less physical interaction and more voice and thought command. Instead of having to dig through folders and menus, you’ll just tell your device what you want and it’ll carry out all of the necessary commands to do that. For example, instead of having to constantly awake your phone, unlock the lock screen, go to the text message app, click on the unread thread, and then type in your message, you’ll just speak it to your device and that’s a wrap. The iPhone 4S will have a feature that automatically makes Siri read every message you get (whether it’s an email or text message), so you won’t even have to touch your phone to reply. It saves a lot of steps and is ultimately a much faster process.

Many people will be hesitant to believe that Siri is a worthy standalone feature, let alone believe there is another major transition coming. It’s understandable. There’s absolutely no reason why anyone should be compelled to believe that voice control is a necessary feature right now. The current implementation just isn’t strong enough and is too focused on listening, not understanding. The moment our devices begin to understand what we want them to do and the majority of consumers have access to this technology, the next transition will begin. This is why I believe Apple’s Siri implementation is the pioneer into this voice and thought dominated age.