iPhone Secrets

Chapter 14

Utilizing Your Personal Assistant: Siri

In This Chapter

• Understanding Siri’s commands
• Managing your digital life
• Setting expectations
• Grasping geofencing

You’ve seen the commercials. You might even know the voice by heart. But have you really put in the effort to conjure up a real relationship with Siri? Siri is Apple’s personal assistant, who debuted on the iPhone 4S and has since found a home on the new iPad and its most current iPhones. Unbeknownst to most outside of the technology field, Siri wasn’t actually created within Apple’s labs. The company that built Siri was acquired by Apple in April of 2010, and the rest—as they say—is history. Siri was billed as a “personal assistant” from day one, rather than a run-of-the-mill voice recognition system. The difference? You can talk to Siri like a real person, instructing her to do things. She does more than simply convert spoken words into text on a screen; she’s capable of actually accomplishing chores for you. The trick, of course, is understanding how to speak to her, what she can and can’t understand, and how to work around her flaws. Oh, and I refer to her as “her” throughout the chapter. Yes, she’s an inanimate robot, but it’s just so much more fun to think of her as a bona fide confidant.

Commanding a Robot

If you let yourself be persuaded by the ads on television, you might believe that Siri is exactly like a human in your phone. Just talk to her, and she’ll respond to anything without issue. That’s actually ...