<story><title>Daring Fireball: The iPhone 4S</title><url>http://daringfireball.net/2011/10/iphone_4s</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>AlexMuir</author><text>I don&apos;t think we (tech people) appreciate just how magical the public is going to find Siri.&lt;p&gt;Most people have never used voice recognition beyond shouting &quot;Call Dave Jobs[1] Mobile&quot; in the car.  This is going to be perceived as magic, in the same way as the accelerometer in the Wii or the original finger touch interface.  Anyone with a 4S is going to be showing this off to their friends, and I can&apos;t wait to try it.&lt;p&gt;There are parallels with people saying &apos;Touch has been around for years, but people prefer buttons&apos; when the iPhone came out. True - until someone did it right.  And now everyone wants touch.&lt;p&gt;And yes, I know it&apos;s been around on Android.  But Apple make you WANT to use it.  No-one&apos;s ever been bursting with excitement to show me their Android voice recognition stuff, and nor have I been wetting myself to try it out.&lt;p&gt;On the downside for Apple - improvements to the iPhone for the foreseeable future look to be on the software/web server side.  They are vulnerable here.  Limiting features to new models is going to piss people off, and fighting patent battles on software is much, much harder.&lt;p&gt;[1] Funny typo - I meant to type Dave Jones.  Only noticed this on rereading the post.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ZeroGravitas</author><text>You could replace a few words and that comment would apply to last year&apos;s &quot;one more thing&quot;: video chat. And many people did make exactly those comments. (Actually most of them said &quot;Apple did it first! Wait, Europe had what a decade ago? Okay, I meant Apple did it best! That&apos;s why it&apos;ll catch on this time.&quot;)&lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell it&apos;s still the same niche users using it for the same niche tasks (talking to kids on business trips, sexting etc.). Nice to have for those that need it, but they mostly had it already via netbooks with Skype.&lt;p&gt;Likewise, I&apos;m hearing about how this is going to transform computing for people with certain disabilities, when they&apos;ve apparently just bought the same Dragon software you&apos;ve been able to buy for years (for transcription, the Siri stuff is apparently semi-distinct).&lt;p&gt;Don&apos;t get me wrong, I like that I can already call up songs in my car by voice with my $100, no-contract, chinese-branded, 600Mhz ARM11 Android phone with a 3rd party, free, ad-supported app. (I amuse myself by practicing my french pronunciation with it too) The gushing just gets a bit old, as does the speculation about what magical powers the A5 must have to enable such wizardry.</text></comment>
<story><title>Daring Fireball: The iPhone 4S</title><url>http://daringfireball.net/2011/10/iphone_4s</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>AlexMuir</author><text>I don&apos;t think we (tech people) appreciate just how magical the public is going to find Siri.&lt;p&gt;Most people have never used voice recognition beyond shouting &quot;Call Dave Jobs[1] Mobile&quot; in the car.  This is going to be perceived as magic, in the same way as the accelerometer in the Wii or the original finger touch interface.  Anyone with a 4S is going to be showing this off to their friends, and I can&apos;t wait to try it.&lt;p&gt;There are parallels with people saying &apos;Touch has been around for years, but people prefer buttons&apos; when the iPhone came out. True - until someone did it right.  And now everyone wants touch.&lt;p&gt;And yes, I know it&apos;s been around on Android.  But Apple make you WANT to use it.  No-one&apos;s ever been bursting with excitement to show me their Android voice recognition stuff, and nor have I been wetting myself to try it out.&lt;p&gt;On the downside for Apple - improvements to the iPhone for the foreseeable future look to be on the software/web server side.  They are vulnerable here.  Limiting features to new models is going to piss people off, and fighting patent battles on software is much, much harder.&lt;p&gt;[1] Funny typo - I meant to type Dave Jones.  Only noticed this on rereading the post.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Angostura</author><text>&quot;I don&apos;t think we (tech people) appreciate just how magical the public is going to find Siri.&quot;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps. But I as a tech person find it magical. But I showed the video of Siri in action to my wife and she had an immediate, visceral hatred of the idea of talking to the phone like that &quot;If I want to set a bloody alarm, I&apos;ll tap the set alarm button thank you&quot;.&lt;p&gt;For context, she&apos;s not a luddite, she&apos;s tech savvy, though not into tech or its own sake. But I don&apos;t think she&apos;ll be alone, I think this is a feature that many non-tech people will loathe initially, perhaps for reasons they cannot articulate.</text></comment>