Do you use Siri?

Savage Tyrant

Just wondering if many of you 4S or 5 users use Siri much and if so, what for?

I upgraded a few days ago to a 5 and while I've used it as a novelty, I'm wondering just how much use it gets from those where the new novelty has worn off.

mad muffin

I use Siri all the time. Especially for reminders

Passenger

When I first got the iPhone I would find any excuse to use it but then the novelty of a talking phone gradually petered out.

Bigcheeze

Occasionally use it in the car to call someone. You can activate it by holding down the centre button on the Apple earphones so can make a call without taking my eyes off the road.

Gorilla Rising

Never.

I prefer not to talk to my phone. I guess some people use it because it's there rather than out of necessity.

Of course it has it's uses for those who genuinely need such functionality.

mad muffin

I also like to set alarms using Siri :pac:

Sad Professor

Nope. I have it switched off. It's useless to me without proper Irish language and location support.

I still have high hopes that Siri will improve in time, but Apple are at a disadvantage in that they don't own a search engine, meaning speed is probably always going to be an issue compared to Google Voice Search.

Bigcheeze

Sad Professor wrote: »

Irish language and location support.

I take it you mean Irish accent, not language.

Irish accents are pretty diverse so can't imagine it being much better then UK English. I suppose they could have a version that doesn't pronounce "Th"

cvjointsally

I find it pretty useless aswell, it never understands me so I don't use it! I'm Irish too

3DataModem

I use it for music in the car, and sending texts.

Savage Tyrant

mad muffin wrote: »

I use Siri all the time. Especially for reminders

mad muffin wrote: »

I also like to set alarms using Siri :pac:

I find using it for reminders and alarms is where it is a genuine helpful shortcut.

3DataModem wrote: »

I use it for music in the car, and sending texts.

For sending texts though, I find it utterly useless. Anything from a stutter, to a pause or a mispronunciation and it makes no sense at all.

guil

Used spire a few times on my iPhone 4 and used it I'd say 10 times max in my iPhone 5

mad muffin

Btw Siri does start to understand you better the more you use it. At the beginning I was like, Siri doesn't understand a word I say, now Siri is spot on 90% of the time.

r0qi4162fux9kg

Savage Tyrant wrote: »

Just wondering if many of you 4S or 5 users use Siri much and if so, what for?

I upgraded a few days ago to a 5 and while I've used it as a novelty, I'm wondering just how much use it gets from those where the new novelty has worn off.

I use it with Siriproxy to control things at home. Heating, lights, hot water etc.
Handy roaring 'bed' / 'Good Night' at him which turns all the lights off in the house off!

I wouldn't use it at all for anything else.

cvjointsally

Huh, must start using it a bit more then! Is a handy feature if it worked for me

seamus

Nope, don't use it, it's awful. Really bad at speech recognition. And I have a pretty neutral accent. I've found the speech recognition on my Nokia Lumia 800 is far superior to Siri.

Dudda

Tried it for a few weeks when I first got my 4S. Never use it now and find it useless and very slow. Google’s speech recognition on my Android is far superior.

120_Minutes

every so often. my second work phone is a 4s so it gets turned off in the evenings, but i use it to tell time if its in my pocket (through headphones) or play music, and the for the first time a couple of weeks ago when i was in dublin i asked "take me to...." and it kicked in apple maps, plotted the route and guided me there (without mistakes i might add!) and to set alarms.

i dont use it everyday, but when i need it, it works.

Hootanany

I use it set reminders thats about it what else can it do.

Piliger

I use it for alarms, reminders, emails, texts, weather checks, web searches. I also used it yesterday and finding out the Lions rugby match times this weekend. Worked a treat.

naasrd

Use it to set alarms, reminders and to reply to texts via my ear pods mic when I'm out walking or place calls.

enigmatical

For calling on the hands free and setting alarm clock reminders. It's not much use for anything else.

DubDJ

Don't really use it. But during the winter it was handy. While wearing gloves if I wanted to make a call all I had to do is put the phone to my ear and say the persons name. That part was handy. But hanging up always had to be done by the recipient. Still a great feature that makes Siri worth it by itself. Mainly use it as a novelty.

Herrick

I've often used it when I'm carrying stuff if I need to make a quick call or something and I've found it has gotten used to my accent up to where it's nearly dead on every time now.

I would use it more, but its very slow. Seeing as it needs data to work it only works well on WiFi for me, on data its very sluggish so I more often than not just close Siri and manually do the task.

Xavi6

Have never used it and don't think I ever will.

Deep Thought

forgot it was actually there until saw this thread

Never use it

Piliger

I find it bizarre that some many people don't use one of the most useful and fun apps on the gadget that they spend so much money on ....

120_Minutes

Piliger wrote: »

I find it bizarre that some many people don't use one of the most useful and fun apps on the gadget that they spend so much money on ....

vast majority of irish smartphone users are either unwilling or unable to use their phones for more than the mere basics.

"sure i'm no good at this stuff"

the irony is that siri et al make it easier.

meoklmrk91

I like Siri, while I don't use it that much I would miss it if it was gone. I find it very handy if I am cooking or washing up and don't want to mess up my phone. I think it works pretty well.

Jimmy Garlic

Useless. It doesn't understand my Donegal accent.

I've yet to use Siri & have it understand what I'm saying correctly.

For example, I'll say exactly the above passage to Siri:

Tapping the microphone.....now.

"I'm getting Siri would understand anything"

See?

mad muffin

Deleted User wrote: »

I've yet to use Siri & have it understand what I'm saying correctly.

For example, I'll say exactly the above passage to Siri:

Tapping the microphone.....now.

"I'm getting Siri would understand anything"

See?

I'm sorry, but I don't even understand that?

Sad Professor

120_Minutes wrote: »

vast majority of irish smartphone users are either unwilling or unable to use their phones for more than the mere basics.

"sure i'm no good at this stuff"

the irony is that siri et al make it easier.

People with this mindset are mostly Android users in my experience. Everyone I know with an iPhone seems to know how to make the most of it. A lot of Android users use their phone to make calls and nothing else. Browser statistics would seem to back this up.

Siri (and voice recognition in general) just isn't that useful to most people. Although I liked DubDJ's suggestion for using it during the cold weather without taking your gloves off. I didn't have earphones with a mic at the time or else I probably would have done this.

seamus

The main problem with voice recognition is that it's public. And most of the time (work, commuting, etc) we are in public or at least in the company of others, when voice recognition wouldn't be appropriate to use, either because you look odd or because you don't want to be dictating an SMS with five people listening to you.
Thus, even when we're in private we're in the mode of manual input so we don't bother with voice recognition.

The main reason I don't use it when it's a good time, such as in the car, is because it's so unreliable. I ask it to dial a number and it will get it completely wrong, meaning I have to panic to cancel the call. Simple commands - "Read message", "Stop music", etc are great. But dictation and handling names are where Siri in particular falls flat.

Gorilla Rising

Piliger wrote: »

I find it bizarre that some many people don't use one of the most useful and fun apps on the gadget that they spend so much money on ....

You think it's useful and fun. I don't.

I don't see how it's fun to talk to a phone.

What's fun for me is the fact that I no longer require a scanner to email documents, access to a multitude of options for music and video, a good camera I always have at my disposal, instant upload to flickr and good navigation options.

All far more useful than Siri I think.

jpr57852

It's really easy to set up reminders. It's also cool for finding out weather and stuff quickly. I can't think of any more, but I do use it quite often.

shanered

I hear the scottish accent doesn't go sown too well with Siri

DuckSlice

i just swear at it to see what it responds! when i fell im not physically able to type into google what im looking for i might start using it!

marconi2.0

Ask Siri who let the dogs out rather funny

L'prof

I've tried it. It can be somewhat useful, but I find it a bit slow in general and not very helpful for things like txts. I turned it on there for a couple of minutes after reading this thread, but it's off again now.

Type 17

I find it great in the car - if you've told Siri "Mary is my wife", "Catherine is my Sister", etc, then you can hit the green button on a Parrot car kit and tell it "Call my wife" or "Call my sister" - great for minimising distraction.

I also find it good for setting alarms and setting up reminders but, despite getting better at recognising my voice, it remains rubbish for dictation or internet-based questions or searches.

Yakult

Using Siri for a few days now and find it useful. Also recognises my voice pretty well too.

squonk

I use it primarily for setting alarms when cooking. Otherwise I don't bother as even when setting reminders it just does't recognise what I'm saying exactly. It just takes more trouble to correct it then than it would have been manually setting the reminder in the first place.

guil

Could you always use Siri for launching any app. With iOS 7 it can launch any of them

DubDJ

guil wrote: »

Could you always use Siri for launching any app. With iOS 7 it can launch any of them

Yeah that was added in iOS 6.

guil

DubDJ wrote: »

Yeah that was added in iOS 6.

Yeah I jut tried it with a work colleagues 4s and sure enough it was there. I thought as lot of stuff like that was disabled for us

DubDJ

guil wrote: »

Yeah I jut tried it with a work colleagues 4s and sure enough it was there. I thought as lot of stuff like that was disabled for us

Actually yeah they did list a lot as unavailable to Ireland but in reality it wasnt. Maybe just not fully ready so they gave it to us but didn't list it as a feature.