Apple's Siri will need to learn new tricks

Summon Siri, the digital assistant contained within the iPhone 4S, and ask: "Why is it so hard to find good help these days?"

"I don't know what you mean," answers the robotic female voice.

Despite all of the quirky, saucy and entertaining responses to oddball remarks -- like "I'm drunk" (Siri returns a list of taxi services) or "What do you look like?" ("Shiny") -- Siri is unable to deliver on many basic commands.

For example, the voice-command service refuses to launch applications. ("I can't do that for you, Mark. I'm sorry to let you down.") The iPhone 4S has an improved camera and a button on the lock screen to quickly access it, but Siri is not a photographer. ("I can't take your pictures for you.") Twitter is embedded in the new version of Apple's mobile software, but ask Siri to tweet, and it says, "Sorry Mark, I can't help you with Twitter."
A glaring omission, which would happen to be a major technical undertaking for Apple, is the inability for third-party developers to tie their apps into Siri. At launch, Apple included data from Yelp for restaurant and retail recommendations, and the Wolfram Alpha search engine for a wide swath of data queries such as city populations and currency conversions.

However, the other 500,000 or so programs on the App Store can't interact with Siri. Brady Forrest, who organizes technology conferences in the San Francisco Bay Area, said he'd like to be able to call up Siri to identify songs with Shazam, get food delivered or order a product on Amazon.com.

But this would be possible only if Siri's functions were unlocked in the same way a developer can access the phone's camera or gyroscope.

"My concern is that Siri will be more constrained by 'biz dev' than by technology," Forrest said, basing his worries on Apple favoring Yelp over Google for local business reviews.

What's more frustrating is that the original Siri app, which Apple shut down after the iPhone 4S was released, was able to accomplish tasks through other services. It could order movie or concert tickets, book restaurant reservations using OpenTable, and call a cab via Taxi Magic. It could also tweet.

Perhaps an open framework is coming. Apple typically does not discuss future releases, and the Siri reborn for the iPhone 4S is less than a week old. On its website, Apple lists 18 apps that Siri works with, two of which, Maps and Yelp, are U.S.-only. The company says it is still working to add new features to the service. "Siri is currently in beta, and we'll continue to improve it over time," Apple's website says.

For the things Siri can do, it (she?) does them well. It can pull up directions, transcribe written notes, create calendar appointments, and remind me to take out the trash at 9 p.m. or whenever I arrive home

Siri's voice recognition technology is adept at interpreting my mumbles and whispers. (It's still awkward to talk to a gadget in public.) And whether I say "text" or "message" or "send an SMS," Siri knows what I mean.

But as I turn to Siri more frequently, I have run into some walls.

I can dictate text messages and e-mails, which can then be read back to me, but Siri won't read me my e-mail messages aloud, which would be useful for when I'm driving. And Siri can't record audio to Apple's own app. "I haven't yet learned dictation, Mark. You'll have to use the Voice Memos app for that," Siri says.

While Siri can't access songs contained within MOG, Pandora or Spotify, it can play an album from Apple's own music app, much like the old Voice Control feature. Yet it can't start a movie stored in Apple's videos app.

Using Voice Control instead of Siri remains an option, which is convenient because Siri requires an Internet connection. But when the phone doesn't have Web access, say in the subway, the system does not automatically switch from Siri to Voice Control.

Customers around the world have complained that Siri can only operate in English, French and German. Apple says more languages, including Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish, will be integrated next year.

Maybe demanding an assistant be quadrilingual is asking too much. Comedian Stephen Colbert poked fun at the high expectations for Siri on his show, jokingly asking his phone to write lines for him.

But as users get accustomed to shouting demands at their phones and having them fulfilled, Apple -- like its competitors in Microsoft's Bing or Google's voice search -- has more work to do to translate into voice commands all of the functions that are currently just a few taps away.

iPhone 4S sale made Buyers line up

Apple fans -- including co-founder Steve Wozniak -- lined up on Friday morning for a chance to buy the iPhone 4S, the latest in the company's line of "Jesus Phones," which includes many under-the-hood improvements.
The lines, which drew thousands, were part exercises in tech commercialism and part homages to Steve Jobs, Apple's other co-founder, who died last week following a battle with pancreatic cancer.
In New York, Apple fans created a makeshift memorial to Jobs that included flowers, photos, iPad boxes and apples (as in the fruit).
And in Atlanta, some people said they were lining up for the phone in part because of Jobs.
"I wanted it anyway, but (Jobs' death) made me sort of want it more because this is the last one I know he worked on," Dwight Hill, from an Atlanta suburb, said of his decision to buy the phone. "I just hope the company keeps going in the same direction."
About 200 people had lined up in the wee hours of the morning in New York to buy the new phone, which has a faster processor and a "digital assistant" that responds to voice commands and talks back to phone owners, answering their questions.
Long lines also formed in Asia and Europe as people waited for the phone.
In Silicon Valley, California, Wozniak, the Apple co-founder who, along with Jobs, helped create the world's first truly personal computer, sat in an armchair at the front of a line that began forming Thursday afternoon. He tapped on his iPad, sipped Diet Dr. Pepper and took photos with fans while he awaited the phone's release.
"I want to get mine along with the millions of other fans," Wozniak said. "I just want to be able to talk to my phone."
The iPhone 4S initially was panned by critics, who said it was more of a facelift to the iPhone 4 than a new product. The phone's exterior looks the same as its predecessor, but the guts are new. Inside there's a faster A5 dual-core processor, an improved 8 megapixel camera and a voice assistant named Siri, who will respond to voice commands and answer questions.
When Brian X. Chen, a tech writer at Wired, tested the phone, he found Siri to be quite the helpful -- and hilarious -- assistant.
He published a series of his conversations with Siri.
"Me: 'I'm drunk,' " he wrote.
"Siri: 'I found a number of cabs fairly close to you.' (Perfect; it didn't dial my ex-girlfriend.)"
Aside from Jobs, Siri seemed to be one of the main draws for people waiting in line for the iPhone 4S.
"I just want the personal assistant," said Teresa Sparks, 41, an Atlanta nurse who had been waiting in line for the phone since 4:45 a.m.
Scott England, who also waited in an Atlanta line for the phone, teased a friend of his who said he was buying the iPhone 4S because of the camera. Clearly, he said, "Siri is a big deal," not the camera.
"He's got a secretary -- I don't," he joked.
Becky Waddell, a 33-year-old real-estate agent, also praised Apple's new digital assistant, which is only available on the iPhone 4S, and which has been compared to HAL 9000, Skynet and other fictional computer overlords.
"I love Siri," she said. "We played with it in the store. I know for sure it will make me a safer driver. I don't have to scramble through my phone while I'm driving. If I can talk to it and get answers, it's going to cut out so much time for me."
Plenty of excitement seemed to surround the phone's release.
In true Apple-head fashion, two Apple fans in New York said they arrived at the flagship Apple Store 18 days before Friday, and blogged about the experience on a site called iPhoneWhatever.
Another person arrived at that store on crutches.
"I got hit by a car and had surgery a few weeks ago. There's tons of metal plates in my foot -- it shattered," David Betz, a 26-year-old bartender. "Is it worth it? We'll find out."
Apple CEO Tim Cook helped unveil the 4S last week a day before Jobs' death.
Pre-orders of the phone started on October 7 and beat expectations. Apple sold 1 million of the phones in the first 24 hours via its website and carriers AT&T, Verizon and -- for the first time -- Sprint. By comparison, Apple reported 600,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders last year in 24 hours, but that included orders placed with overseas carriers.
The iPhone 4S went on sale Friday at all 245 Apple stores in the U.S., in addition to the following countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom. The new iPhone will be available in 22 additional countries by the end of October, Apple says.
Apple stores and other retailers opened at 8 a.m. Friday. Online orders can be made at Apple's online store as well as on AT&T, Verizon and Sprint's websites.
If you were hoping to pre-order now and pick up the phone Friday, you're out of luck. Pre-orders at AT&T, Sprint and Verizon are sold out, and phones ordered through Apple's website may not be delivered for several weeks.
All of those brick-and-mortar retail stores also will carry the phone, along with select Apple-approved retailers: Radio Shack, Best Buy, Target and Sam's Club. (Word of warning: Check availability before lining up at one of those third-party sellers. Inventory is limited, and some will be filling pre-orders before selling whatever stock may remain.)
Customers who buy the phone at an Apple retail store will be offered free in-store setup service, personalized instruction on how to set up e-mail and download apps.
The phone sells for $199 for 16GB of storage, $299 for 32GB and $399 for 64GB, marking the first time an iPhone has had that much memory.
It also seems impossible to separate interest in the iPhone 4S with news of Jobs' death last week.
Among the legions of Apple's diehard fans, some have taken saying the "4S" in the phone's name represents the words "For Steve."
Although it's virtually impossible that the company would have done that on purpose (the phone's development happened largely when Jobs was still CEO) it speaks both to the long reach of Jobs' legacy and the cult-like devotion that some Apple loyalists feel toward the company and its products.