I recently moved away from my long relationship with Blackberry and joined the millions of iPhone users. Some of the functions aren’t quite as easy on the new phone, but many others are a hell of a lot better. My version of the iPhone came with Siri, and I was pretty eager to check out her capabilities.
Overall, it’s pretty damn impressive. “How old is Andy Samburg?” I asked her after seeing that he was playing Adam Sandler’s son in a movie. “Maybe this will help,” she said, and she displayed his birthday and current age. “How many pounds are in one stone?” I asked after Adam Carolla wondered the same thing aloud on his podcast. “Ok, here you go,” she replied, showing me the conversion. She’s great with reminders, and decent with sending simple text messages too, but it’s not all peaches and cream, my friends.
I have an entry in my address book called “Home.” When leaving work each day, I say, “Call Home.” 90% of the time she responds with, “Ok, calling Home. Home.” The other 10%? “I’m sorry, but you don’t have a home number associated with your contact information,” or something like that. I say it the same way each time, but she’s not consistent. The same goes with calling my parents. “Call Parents,” I used to say. 75% of the time, no problem. The rest of the time I was met with, “Ok, what is your parent’s name?” “PARENTS,” I’d say in return, since that’s the name of the entry. “Ok, what is your parent’s name?” I changed it to “My Parents” in the address book, but that may be even worse. The thing that kills me is that it works some of the time and not others, even when I haven’t altered the way I ask at all.
But here’s the one that made me write about her. I was in San Diego for business and driving back to my office in Santa Monica. The freeway entrance I was all set to take was under construction, and the signs for a detour were inadequate for someone of my horrific sense of direction. “Get me to the 5 North,” I said. She didn’t understand that, which I thought was an acceptable thing. “Get me to the Santa Monica Airport,” I said, picking something I knew was close enough that the directions would start me off on the right path. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I can’t find anything called ‘Santa Monica Airport.'” I was a little dubious but undeterred. “Get me to LAX,” I said. “I’m sorry,” she said again, “but I can’t find anything called ‘Los Angeles International Airport.'” “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” I said out loud. I only said “LAX,” which she somehow knew meant “Los Angeles International Airport”…but then couldn’t find it anywhere? I felt like she was deliberately fucking with me, and I may or may not have called her a “lying ass bitch.”
Aside from that though, the phone’s pretty cool.