As is typical, all geek eyes were glued on Cupertino today as Apple unveiled it’s latest iPhone. Although many expected the iPhone 5 as predicted by some, they instead unveiled the iPhone 4S. But if all this was about was launching a slight upgrade to an existing hardware device I wouldn’t be writing this post.
No, what was unveiled was something seriously bigger and better than that. For perhaps the first time in computing history, real people on the street can have their own personal digital assistant to take their every order and do their every bidding. By voice command. Well, not everything, mind you, get your mind out of the gutter.
Dubbed Siri, this technology that Apple bought a while back is more than simple voice recognition on steroids. It is really just the entrypoint to who knows how many byte-crunching services in the background (read “the cloud”) that are all lined up to provide Siri with a highly useable response. How do I know this? Well, apparently it doesn’t work without a network connection of some kind — either WiFi or cell. Also, you simply couldn’t do the kinds of things it reportedly does without access to some heavy-duty resources. Also reportedly, Wolfram Alpha is one such resource.
So am I ready for a device I can speak to and ask “What is the price of tea in China?” and (hopefully) get a useable response? Yes, I totally am. Call me geek-boy, but Siri, I love you and I haven’t even met you yet.
In related news, the iPhone 3G is now free with a phone contract. This means the phone in my pocket is now officially worthless. And just at that moment I’m falling in love all over again. Man, Apple, you totally have this capitalism thing down.
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