A new poll has revealed that only 40 per cent of Macworld readers use the iPhone 4S’s personal assistant Siri, and of those, almost a third only use it when they’re showing off to friends.
Siri was launched as a key feature of the iPhone 4S, enabling users to make calls, find out information, send text messages and more through just the use of their voice.
However, it seems that the novelty has worn of for many of those with access to Siri. In our poll of 290 Macworld readers, 23.8 per cent said that they don’t use Siri anymore because it doesn’t do anything useful, while 21.4 per cent said that they find it too frustrating to get the voice activated assistant to work properly. Siri has put 15.2 per cent of our readers off using after failing to understand them when they ask it to carry out a task.
But for 19.3 per cent of our poll’s participants, Siri is a handy tool for when they need to be hands free, and 9 per cent say that the find it easier to dictate a message than type it.
Even Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak slammed Siri, saying that the assistant was “pretty incredible” before, but since Apple bought it has become “poo-poo”.
Siri has also been the centre a class-action lawsuit in which Apple was accused of falsely advertising the iPhone 4S' personal assistant.
Our readers agree. In the Macworld forums, grumpygiraffe said: “Other than being able to tell us what its name is we haven’t actually got Siri to do anything vaguely useful.”
Some 4S owners, such as our forum user Zanc, are beginning to regret opting for the iPhone 4S over its predecessor. “In the UK Siri has very limited appeal. Looking back I think I would have been just as happy going for the cheaper iPhone 4,” Zanc said.
Apple has made some improvements to Siri, which will arrive with iOS 6 when it launches this autumn. This includes the introduction of Siri on the iPad, but it will only be compatible with the newest iPad model.
One of the most important improvements for UK users is international support for Siri to locate business information in Apple’s new Maps app. Previously, only iPhone owners in the US were able to use Siri to carry out business searches. Siri is also set to learn more about sport, and will be able to launch apps.
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Comments received
ari-boy said on Tue, 24 Jul 2012
Perhaps more people would be able to appreciate Siri if Apple stopped the ludicrous decision to restrict the feature to iPhone 4S phones. There's no justifiable reason why Siri couldn't work on the iPhone 4.
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