About Siri...
Both my parents are blind and have bought iPhone 4Ss for Siri, as well as VoiceOver. For us, Siri is not a toy or an improvement in productivity, or a status symbol. It is the difference between being able to do certain things on a smartphone and not being able to do them. You will understand that my interest in Siri is a bit more Siri-ouse
than the average person.
First, you absolutely need a rock-solid connection. I suspect many of the problems, yesterday, were from Apple's end. Time to build another data center. If they don't get on top of it in a hurry, the iPhone 4S will be the most returned iPhone.
Second, it seems Siri does not like cases or remote mics. When naked, Siri performs beautifully. (Get your minds out of the gutter). When dressed up in anything that might interfere with the mic, all bets are off. It is none too fund of my expensive Bose headset, either.
Lifting the phone to the ear does not seem to be working reliably, either. It is hit or miss. Again, it is great when it works. I suspect this can be fixed with software tweaks. Here's to hoping.
There has been much made about the fact that you cannot change the voice. This is only haft true. The iPhone ships with a ton of voices and languages installed, and Siri can use them all as near as I can tell. Here's the catch. We use VoiceOver: the built-in screen reader that most people do not know is there. I select different voices on the fly. I am not going to detail how it is done because if you do not need to use VoiceOver, you would just be confused. It changes the interface to be more accessible to blind users. Since I use both interfaces all the time, it is easy for me. If you use VoiceOver, Siri will speak with the VoiceOver preference.
That's all for now. I will check back later and add more thoughts as I have time. Enjoy.
Both my parents are blind and have bought iPhone 4Ss for Siri, as well as VoiceOver. For us, Siri is not a toy or an improvement in productivity, or a status symbol. It is the difference between being able to do certain things on a smartphone and not being able to do them. You will understand that my interest in Siri is a bit more Siri-ouse
than the average person.First, you absolutely need a rock-solid connection. I suspect many of the problems, yesterday, were from Apple's end. Time to build another data center. If they don't get on top of it in a hurry, the iPhone 4S will be the most returned iPhone.
Second, it seems Siri does not like cases or remote mics. When naked, Siri performs beautifully. (Get your minds out of the gutter). When dressed up in anything that might interfere with the mic, all bets are off. It is none too fund of my expensive Bose headset, either.
Lifting the phone to the ear does not seem to be working reliably, either. It is hit or miss. Again, it is great when it works. I suspect this can be fixed with software tweaks. Here's to hoping.
There has been much made about the fact that you cannot change the voice. This is only haft true. The iPhone ships with a ton of voices and languages installed, and Siri can use them all as near as I can tell. Here's the catch. We use VoiceOver: the built-in screen reader that most people do not know is there. I select different voices on the fly. I am not going to detail how it is done because if you do not need to use VoiceOver, you would just be confused. It changes the interface to be more accessible to blind users. Since I use both interfaces all the time, it is easy for me. If you use VoiceOver, Siri will speak with the VoiceOver preference.
That's all for now. I will check back later and add more thoughts as I have time. Enjoy.
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