Good news for all you iPhone 4S owners: Siri is actually good for things other than hiding dead bodies! Who knew?!
In Siri for Dummies, Marc Saltzman has taken the time to walk every proud Siri owner through her basic abilities, as well as her more helpful (and humorous) functions.
Siri can set timer's to wake you from a nap, write email, read and respond to text messages and much more. Siri even wrote this review—with a little help from me of course.
Though it takes some time and effort to get used to speaking correctly to Siri—i.e. clearly enunciating—there are few every day tasks that Siri can’t handle. However, there are times that you have to pose the question a specific way to get the desired response, and there are times you want to throw the phone out the window. At those times I have to remind myself that it’s a phone!
In addition to having the applications noted above, Siri also has really great maps, can provide directional assistance, update your shopping list, add meetings to your calendar, and set reminders; and, she can even answer thousands of trivia questions—although, she does have her limits. Despite being able to tell me who won for Best Picture in 1982, she couldn’t name the Great Lakes or Santa’s reindeer… just sayin.
I once asked her, “Why is life so hard?”, and she suggested a web search. However, when I asked, “What is the meaning of life?” she had answers for me. Apparently, Apple anticipated their customers’ penchant for being silly and/or crude and included responses for some of the more random or off-color questions such as: tell me a joke, what is your favorite color, and what are you wearing? Siri will even answer who her daddy is if you ask her nicely.
Though it’s easy to figure out the basic functions of Siri, Saltzman’s book not only showcased new things to try, but also the right way to ask.
Already capable of doing so much, I was surprised to learn that Siri is still in beta version. There's no doubt that Siri, like most human women, will only get better with age.
(Sent from my iPhone)
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Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: For Dummies; Portable Edition edition (April 24, 2012)
ISBN-13: 978-1118299289