Now Siri Is a Little More Yelpful. Now when you're looking for a great place to grab dinner, get your haircut, or find an awesome dog walker for your K9 companion, Siri can help – with ratings.
With the launch of iOS 5.1 last week, Apple added deeper Yelp integration for the built-in personal assistant. Yelp business information has been integrated into Siri's search results since the launch of the iPhone 4S last year. So, if you asked Siri where the best place is to grab a cup of coffee, she would search through Yelp's reviews to find the greatest cup of Joe near your current location.
Previously, clicking on a search result, however, would map out directions to a particular business rather than take you to its profile page so you'll know how to get to that coffee but not much more about it. Now when you search for a locksmith, ice cream parlor, or pizza joint, Siri will display the same search results from Yelp. Yelp and Google Maps are currently two of the few services that Siri uses to provide search results. Apple Left Siri Off the New iPad Because Siri’s Not Ready for It. Pick up a new “resolutionary” iPad this Friday and one thing you won’t be able to do is ask it when the world will end (hint: not in 2012), what the meaning of life is, or whether Google makes better phones.
That’s because it doesn’t include Siri, Apple’s ballyhooed speak-and-it-responds app for the iPhone 4S. Why not? Because Apple wants to sell you an iPhone, right? That’s what most will tell you anyway, and it’s true on a crude economic level. But there’s a more nuanced reason: Siri’s not ready for the iPad. The new iPad does have voice recognition of a kind: It’ll take dictation if you’d rather speak an email or document or whatever else instead of typing it out.
A look at Siri's performance in Japanese (hands-on video) Siri rival Evi looks set to be pulled from App Store. A personal assistant app called Evi may soon be pulled from Apple’s App Store because the Cupertino company says it’s too similar to Siri, the Apple-owned app found on iPhone 4S handsets.
Evi, which costs 99c (69p), can run on earlier versions of the iPhone too, as well as the iPad, and also works on Android-powered devices. Submitted to the App Store by its maker, True Knowledge, Apple appeared to have no difficulty in clearing Evi for launch last month, but as its popularity has grown — it’s currently at number one in the UK App Store chart and number five in the US — the company looks to have changed its tune. “Perhaps it’s the fact that Evi is pretty damn good, and doesn’t look a million miles away from Siri,” suggests TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher, who spoke to William Tunstall-Pedoe, CEO of True Knowledge, about the issue.
If Evi is pulled any time soon, more than 200,000 iOS users of the app will be unable to get updates. Touchscreen vs. Keyboard, the Sequel - Lauren Goode - Commerce. Last week, I wrote about how touchscreens are forcing the reinvention of keyboards, looking into how touchscreen keypads are easily updateable, yet can be cumbersome to type on.
The post also highlighted a few solutions that tech companies are working on in this area. The piece elicited a variety of reactions — even Roger Ebert seems to think it might be too late to learn a new keyboard. I also received a fair number of follow-up emails pointing out some interesting technologies that I’d missed. So here are some other options for the touchscreen-averse: Talk Emo to Me A company called Siine is trying make touchscreen typing even quicker by replacing words or entire phrases with emoticons. The Siine Writer app is based on editable icons. So, instead of typing out a text-laden message, users tap a series of visual cues that send the message to the person on the receiving end. The free app is available in both English and Spanish for devices running Android OS. Can Siri Control Your Home? A small company in Arkansas is showing an unexpected side to Apple's voice-based intelligent assistant Siri.
This YouTube video shows various home appliances being controlled via voice command on the iPhone 4S, from adjusting the thermostat and light dimmers to turning on Blu-Ray DVD players. Little Rock-based Carnes Audio, which custom installs home automation systems, created its own promotional video of Siri communicating with household technologies. For example, the demo shows Siri dimming the lights to 50% and setting the thermostat to 70 degrees after she was told to do so. Control Your Mac Using iPhone 4S Dictation With Vocal. If you own an iPhone 4S, you will have undoubtedly spent many hours playing with Siri and Dictation to test the ability of your handset to search and display information and control the device.
Apple might be working on bringing similar controls to the Mac, possibly integrating them tightly with the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, but there are already some very viable options available to users that will allow them to use their iPhone 4S to control their Mac computer — one of them being Vocal. Vocal is an iOS and Mac application, created by Matthew Roberts, that synchronises your iPhone 4S with your Mac to enable the control of apps, perform searches, add, edit and copy text and even issue voice commands to control your song playlists over your Wi-Fi connection. Roberts explains why he created the app:
Google Voice for iOS Gets Multi-Recipient Texting, Sprint Support. 21 December '11, 02:39pm Follow Google has pushed live a new update for its Google Voice iPhone application, bringing iPhone users up to speed with features that have been present in its Android equivalent.
The search giant has pushed live version 1.4.0.2372, introducing multi-recipient texting with contact autocomplete, Sprint integration support, a multi-line text entry field and 1-touch copy and paste in the dialer. Siri Hacked to Control a Thermostat — What’s Next? Siri Hack Opens Your Car Door and Starts the Engine. A simple Siri hack essentially allows users to control their vehicles with their voices.
Using the Viper Control plugin and Siri Proxy, Brandon Fiquett uploaded a video on YouTube demonstrating the capabilities of Apple’s voice-activated technology when it’s been connected to a Cobra remote starter. The video above shows Fiquett starting and stopping the ignition of his Acura TL car by simply speaking these commands into his iPhone using the Siri app. Fiquett explains that the “command is sent from Siri to a Viper server, then relayed via cellular connection to the car. The car then broadcasts an update via RF to the key chain remote.” The hack can also lock and unlock the car and also pop open the trunk.