Who knew that personal assistants could be found in the form of iPhones applications?
A year of development and $24 million later, Siri has successfully created an iPhone application that can bring the services of a personal assistant right to your iPhone. Sound too good to be true? Siri brings numerous APIs (30 to be exact) to the iPhone with this one application that is distinct from others. With the conversational interface, it can perform a variety of tasks that you can access online.
For example, if you state into the phone, "find me a French restaurant in Arcadia, CA," it will do just that. Once you select one of their key searches and give permission to reserve your table, you're good to go! But it doesn't just end there. You can look up movie listings, order the tickets, book a taxi, find an address or business phone number, and much, much more. It can also set reminders, just like a real, personal secretary!
Siri turns your speech into text through language processing and semantic analysis and then filter your request to different services on the world wide web, such as Citysearch. Even though the text or speech may be misconstrued, the application seeks to offer only pertinent information based on context alone, your location, time of day, etc.
The application is now available for free in the App Store, but is only recommended for iPhone 3G models since it requires processing power that older iPhones are not as capable of. But an app for the older versions are reported to be released soon. How does it make money? Simple! Every time you buy something using the Siri Personal Assistant Application, Siri receives affiliate fees. Not surprisingly enough, the Android and Blackberry are working to incorporate this feature on their phones as well.
Have you tried it yet?
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