Apple Announces Siri, the iPhone 4s Voice Assistant

During their “Let’s talk iPhone” media event Apple unveiled their latest game changer, Siri a voice controlled virtual assistant.

Apple’s VP Scot Forstall took the stage and demonstrated Siri to the packed auditorium, and it was quite impressive, and brave I might add. Scott simply said “What is the weather like today?” – Siri responds – “Here is the forecast for today: Sunny and 70s”. To activate Siri you simply just have to hold down the home button, and Siri will begin listening.

Scott went on to say “Do I need a raincoat today?” – Siri responded – “It sure looks like rain today.” Several more demos were done, Engadget had a nice photo stream of them, I’ve included some of the photos below.

Siri can also read messages back to you, search various sites, schedule you appoints for your calendar, setup reminders for you, and even transcribe text messages for you. Siri will come with built-in support for German, French and of course English.

Siri was acquired by Apple back in 2010 for around $200 million. Below is a video of Siri, before Apple purchased it, so you can see some of the other features:

There are 3 Comments. Add Yours.

Amelia @ IT Management
October 4, 2011 at 4:32 pm

This seems useful. I hope it works well with heavy accents as I see a lot of potential in the international market.

Personally, I hate speaking to an inanimate object but I might be willing to change this view in the near future.

Maybe Siri will make secretaries extinct.
Miami Lawyer
October 4, 2011 at 5:25 pm

Apple is absolutely killing me. I’m not sure how they do it, but every time they release a product, I “must” have it.

—/
Florida Attorney
seazel
October 8, 2011 at 11:07 am

Siri is entirely software-based; ergo there’s no reason for it to be restricted purely to the 4S. Hell, even the recognition and heavy processing is done in the cloud, by the sound of it, so it’s not as if they can claim it requires the upgraded processor.