Most of the new features in iOS 5 simply run faster on the iPhone 4S, but one major new feature is exclusive to the new model: Siri voice assistant. Here's a look at how it works in action, responding to a variety of requests.
Apart from iPhone 4S, other iOS devices upgraded to run the free new iOS 5 continue to supply Voice Control, which responds to a variety of voice commands such as "what time is it?" or "play songs by MGMT," or "call Tim Cook."
The new Siri dramatically expands upon Voice Control, offering a much wider, more powerful vocabulary for creating Notes, composing Emails and Messages, navigating and changing Calendar events, setting new Reminders, and taking dictation within apps virtually anywhere you could type.
Siri also plugs into external services, integrating with smart artificial intelligence servers hosted by Apple to decipher not just basic commands but natural language questions. It then provides answers through Google or Bing, Wolfram Alpha, Wikipedia, Yelp, and Yahoo weather and stock market information.
Voice recognition
Siri offloads voice recognition to Apple's servers, which apparently run software licensed from Nuance. The text to speech component of Siri is very good, far easier to begin using and more accurate than other systems I've used.
More importantly, however, Siri isn't just voice recognition and dictation. The heart of Siri is a new AI system that works to understand what you mean, not just transcribe the words you say. So while it's nice to be able to talk rather than type, the real functionality of Siri is the ability to respond to what you want to do.
This isn't always perfect, but it's very usable. Generally, when Siri fails to understand what you ask, it's because of a lack of context. You can start over and the same words will be correctly recognized.
As a test of Siri's core voice recognition, I read back the previous lines into the iPhone 4S, and quickly got the following text back as a result. I wasn't speaking with any special diction and was using a normal speaking speed. The result isn't perfect, but is very good, especially considering that you can touch to select problems and correct them. Siri didn't drop in some of the punctuation (I was barely stopping for commas), and got a few words wrong (marked in bold below):
Siri offloads voice recognition to Apple servers which apparently run software license from Nuance. The text-to-speech component of Siri is very good far easier to begin using a more accurate than other systems I've used. More importantly however serious and just voice recognition and dictation. The heart of Siri is a new AI system that works to understand what you mean not just transcribe the words you say. so what's nice to be old to talk rather than type the real functionality of Siri's ability to respond to what you want to do. This isn't always perfect but very usable generally when Siri fails to understand what you ask is because a lot of context you can start over in the same words of me correctly recognized.
Idea recognition
It's apparent when using Siri that you don't have to say everything perfectly, or mouth just the right words in the just the right order, or even have what you say be correctly recognized, because Siri looks at the context of your conversation with it to provide a useful answer more often than not.
If the response you get isn't what you were looking for, simply repeating or correcting your request generally delivers what you want. You don't have to say things according to a specific set of commands.
This use of context to interpret your commands means that Siri is most likely to get confused if you suddenly change what you're talking about without signaling that you want to start something new. You can always request to "start over."
Voice navigation
Some of the most useful things Siri does is perform jobs that would otherwise require typing in a bunch of text. Asking for a map of an area, or directions to a destination, is a key example. Or asking for weather, stock prices, definitions of terms and so on. You can also type the microphone icon in the virtual keyboard to enter text via your voice in most apps.
To create new Notes or to address and compose emails, you don't even need to hit a dictation button. You just tell Siri what you want to do. In the video below, I ask for directions, pull up an answer to a conversion question, ask Siri to compose a new Note, and ask to "call my mom," which prompts Siri to ask what my mom's name is, cross reference her Contact, and present three phone numbers I have associated with her. It will remember who I have identified as my mom, sister, brother or father next time I ask.
Also shown in the video is how Siri handles interruptions from multitasking notifications. The alarm that goes off while Siri is transcribing a Note for me has no impact on the user interface or the accuracy of the Note.
