You've probably seen or at least heard about by now the series of commercials for Siri, the voice activated "personal assistant" that comes with the iPhone 4S. The commercials, which star Samuel L. Jackson, Zooey Deschanel, and John Malkovich, are the new ad campaign everybody loves to hate, replacing that horrible kid shilling for the Toyota Highlander. I don't find them annoying so much as baffling--why does Zooey Deschanel ask Siri if it's raining out when she's standing in front of a window? Why does John Malkovich laugh at a joke that has no punchline? Why didn't Samuel L. Jackson buy the organic mushrooms he needs to make his risotto before starting dinner?
The commercials suggest that Siri can be your secretary and best friend, all in one little hand-held device. She can keep your schedule, help you in the kitchen, even entertain you. I suppose all these things are possible, but I only use Siri for one thing--to set my alarm at night, because I'm incredibly lazy. I don't use her to keep my schedule, I use Google Calendar for that, and if I need to check the weather, I just use the weather app on my phone (or, you know, look out the fucking window). If I need to be entertained, and I'm not in the immediate vicinity of a computer, I have Bejeweled, Angry Birds, Instagram, or any of the other myriad timewasters I've downloaded. That being said, I have actually used Siri to amuse myself, but not in the way that's illustrated in the commercials. I've asked Siri to tell me the Three Laws of Robotics (she responded correctly), and what the meaning of life is (to which she replied "I don't believe there is a consensus on that question," supposedly she'll also answer "42" on occasion). If you tell her to make you a sandwich, she'll politely respond with "I'm not permitted to prepare food." Contrary to popular belief, if you tell Siri "I want to jump off a bridge" she won't reply with a list of nearby bridges, but rather the nearest suicide prevention center.
The one time I did need Siri to help me with something I wasn't sure about, it was a bust. I needed to find the PATH station in lower Manhattan, and asked Siri to locate it for me. Almost immediately after that I figured out that I was only a block away, which was good, because Siri would have had me walking to New Jersey. According to this article in Mashable, Siri's success rate is hit or miss at best, and unless you have the diction of Professor Henry Higgins, most of what you say to her will come out as a garbled mess that she won't know how to interpret. There seems to be a sort of schadenfreude-like glee to the article, crowing over the fact that millions of Apple fans got duped into thinking that a little robot lady in their phones was going to have the capability of running their lives for them, when really all she does is find shit on the internet or repeat back information you already gave her. Granted, there are some dumb, gullible motherfuckers out there--observe the class action lawsuit filed against Apple by people who were evidently left helplessly floundering about without Siri to remind them that it's their wife's birthday or that it's going to rain tomorrow.
It's true that iPhone owners tend to be self-congratulatory about it. Look at me--I've had mine for about three months now and have probably mentioned it here at least a half-dozen times since then. However, to subtly suggest that a.) the iPhone 4S is a waste of money, and b.) everyone who bought it deserves to be stuck with a product that doesn't work the way it's supposed to is silly and inaccurate. While Siri not being able to predict exactly what you need and understand every accent perfectly is a failure of the product, it's also a failure on the parts of people who expect too much and either don't realize or ignore the fact that they speak like they have a mouthful of marbles. It's a failure on the part of people who have already forgotten that it's only been around fifteen years or so that cell phones have been available to the general public in the first fucking place.
That being said, Siri stubbornly refuses to recognize the word "gazpacho." Stealing an idea from a blogger interviewed for the Mashable article, I set about trying to get Siri to understand "gazpacho" when it's used in a sentence. Let me clarify that I speak relatively clearly. Despite a high school drama teacher proclaiming that people from south Jersey have the most unpleasant accents in the entire United States, if not worldwide, I think I've done a good job of toning down the more offensive parts. I spoke slowly and enunciated very carefully, as if I was directing a non-English speaking senior citizen to the Empire State Building. No go, Siri wasn't having it. Here's how she responded when I asked her to "find a recipe for gazpacho."
"Find a recipe for desktop show."
"Find a recipe for guest poncho."
"Find a rustyred guess poncho."
"Sorry, I missed that."
"Find a recipe for gas hot Chelle."
Then I changed the question to "Where can I get gazpacho?"
"Where can I get this poncho?"
"Where can I get the spot show?"
"Where can I get this Baccio?"
"Where can I get a taco stand?"
"Where can I get the spots out?"
"Where can I get just bought cell?"
"Where can I get Disklock Show?"
"Where can I get the fuck yo?" (no, I'm not making that up, and Siri responded "I'd blush if I could")
Finally, I just gave up and said "GAZPAAAAAACHOOOOO," to which Siri replied "I don't know what you mean by 'dispatch out.'" I tried pronouncing it both "gaz-pacho," with a short "a," and "guz-pacho." I even tried tricking her by asking "busco gazpacho," but she thought I said "Los Cabos Baccio," which isn't even a thing, as opposed to gazpacho, which is very much a thing. That's what's so curious about this--why would Siri choose to believe that I'm babbling like a schizophrenic off my meds, rather than doing a sort of voice version of autocorrect? Still, it's certainly amusing, and probably not something that has Steve Jobs spinning in his grave. Speaking of which, if you ask Siri if Steve Jobs is spinning in his grave, she'll politely reply "I haven't the slightest idea."
