Showing posts tagged iOS 5

Things I wish Siri could do

Apple’s new Siri intelligent agent for the iPhone 4S understands a bunch of useful stuff, but I wish it could do more. Here’s a list of tasks that I wish Siri could help me with:

  • “Remind me to give Mark his present when I see him next” — use Find My Friends to discover that Mark is close, then remind me to give him a present.
  • “What flights are leaving tomorrow for Seattle?” — this use to work in Siri the app, but no longer does in Siri for iPhone 4S.
  • “Tweet ‘hi there #vegastech’” — full integration with Twitter and Facebook, and a full understanding of hashtags and Twitter handles.
  • “Launch TweetBot” — app launcher would be great!
  • “Reserve a table at a good Italian restaurant.” — Siri use to have this ability by using OpenTable in the app version. Not so in iPhone 4S.
  • “When’s a good time to book a two-hour meeting this Thursday?” — returns some choices for when the meeting might occur. Although this doesn’t work, you can ask Siri “what’s going on at 3 this Thursday?”
  • “What songs do I have by Dave Matthews?” — returns a list of songs. Interestingly, she does understand this query, but says “Sorry Mike, I can’t search that content.”
  • “Show me a preview for ‘Green Latern’” — Siri the app use to return actual movie previews that you could watch. Not so on the iPhone 4S.
  • “What movies are playing tonight?” — Siri the app use to return movies that were currently playing in theaters. Again, not on the iPhone 4S.
  • “How much time do I have before my next meeting?” — she answers with the time and date of your next meeting. However, she doesn’t go as far as actually giving you a time span. She has this data, she should be able to answer the question. 
  • “Tell Mel he owes my $20” — There is no “Mel” in my address book because he’s under his full name “Melvin”. Siri should learn nicknames.
  • “Show me reviews for Joseph’s Restaurant” — she would return Yelp results.

To be fair, Siri does a few smart things that I didn’t expect. For example, ”remind me to call Kaywood in a minute” not only notifies you of your call, but she also pops up a dialog box offering to call Kaywood (which, I think, is more a function of the Reminders app).