The iPhone 4S and Siri have now experienced life outside the sacred, vaulted halls of Cupertino for one week, and the reviews from consumers and tech pundits alike are almost universally positive. Early impressions seem to indicate that Siri might not herald a complete revolution in mobile computing, but it’s certainly a very cool addition that works a lot better than expected.
Recognized Open Siri-related commands include Open Siri, Show Siri, Launch Siri and Switch to Siri, for example. You will also see that in each case there’s a checkbox beside each command.
According to the same report that heralded Siri’s inclusion in OS X, the Mac version will—like its iPhone counterpart—respond to “Hey Siri” when it’s plugged in. That’s good news for iMac users. Siri4mac is the port of siri to mac os x is completely offline and will offer basic commands. Player for Mac OS X Leopard. Vocal lets you vocally control your Mac. Using the dictation feature of the iPhone 4S, Vocal lets you dictate text and send commands right from your device. Sierra removes support for garbage collection from the Objective-C runtime, a memory-management system that was added in Mac OS X Leopard (version 10.5) and declared deprecated in favor of Automatic Reference Counting in OS X Mountain Lion (version 10.8). Applications that have been compiled with garbage collection will no longer run. Speech Recognition has been in OS X for years. However, it’s not as perfect as Siri is expected to be. Siri removes the need to learn commands, while Mac’s Speech Recognition program wants you to learn commands. Despite this, Mac users — iMac, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air owners — can still activate the speech recognition feature.
Except… there’s still that niggling issue with using Siri the virtual assistant in a public place. Sure, there are plenty of videos of people using Siri while surrounded by giggling, jealous friends, where Siri is the highlight of the show and it’s actually cool to talk to your phone — but so far, there are scant few reports of what it feels like to use Siri while walking down a street… because no one dares do it.
In reality, unless Apple yet again changes the very fabric of society, Siri will primarily be used when you’re at home or in the office, either alone or surrounded by close friends and family. Now, Siri is almost certainly coming to the iPad 3 (or perhaps the iPad 2, when Siri leaves beta testing), but get this: Isn’t there another computer that we regularly interact with while at home or in the office? A laptop or desktop, perhaps?
Just imagine if Siri ran on your Mac OS X computer. OS X Siri would work almost exactly like her iOS sister, but because background noise would be less of a concern she might be voice- rather than button-activated. Functionality-wise, imagine the possibilities:
Siri For Mac Os X 10.6
“Siri, search for some flight deals to London and pop up a tab when you’ve found something.”
“Siri, start downloading my usual Tuesday TV shows.”
Siri Mac Os X El Capitan
“What song is currently playing, Siri?”
“Quick, Siri, take a photo!”
And so on. OS X Siri would work as flawlessly as iOS Siri, but it would simply be faster, more accurate, and capable of carrying out far more actions. You wouldn’t have to worry about cellular coverage, either.
So where is Siri for Mac OS X? Well, here’s the good news: it’s almost guaranteed to appear in a future version of OS X. It might debut with OS X Lynx (or whatever 10.8 is called), or it might even ferry in OS 11, if Apple ever decides to move on from OS X. Siri for iOS isn’t revolutionary because we’re still inexorably tied to our laptop and desktop computers — but Siri for OS X… well, that could just be the first step towards a Star Trek-like “computer.”
Of course, for voice controls to really revolutionize computing, Microsoft would have to get on board and bring Siri-like functionality to the other 95% of consumers. On the other hand, though, it seems too late for inclusion in Windows 8 — and by the time Windows 9 rolls around in three years, consumers might have already moved on to the voice-commanded OS X. Maybe Siri for OS X is exactly what Apple needs to grab another large chunk of market share; perhaps Siri for OS X is the next iPod or iPhone.
Read more about Siri, the iPhone 4S, and iOS 5