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    Apple Has Big Plans For Siri to Take Over our Lives

    By Rebecca Greenfield | The Atlantic Wire – Thu, Jan 19, 2012
    Apple Has Big Plans For Siri to Take Over our Lives

    The patent office has made public Apple's patent for its iPhone bot, revealing to us some of the company's lofty plans for Siri's future. And looks like Apple has big plans to make us even more dependent on our digital friend. When released, reviewers called Siri the best part of the new iPhone and the personal assistant got a lot of credit for Apple's bonanza sales. Now that Siri's a bona-fide success, we have no doubt Apple will tweak the bot to do even more when it releases that fabled iPhone 5. 

    RELATED: Some Technical Explanations for Siri's Abortion Glitch


    Siri will do your E-shopping. As of right now, iPhone owners can't make purchases via Siri. The bot will suggest some Best Buy items, but, one can't access iTunes and binge on Downton Abbey episodes. It's not like Apple didn't think of this genius idea, they just haven't implemented it yet, as the patent specifically mentions "E-commerce (including online purchases of items such as books, DVDs, music, and the like)," as a part of Siri's functionality in the application. That sounds like a particularly good idea for Apple, since Amazon's having such a ball with their shopping machine. 

    RELATED: There Are Other Cool Things Siri Can Do


    Siri will make decisions for you. As of now, when asked for Chinese food recommendations in the area, Siri gives a list of nearby restaurants. But for the truly indecisive that's not enough. Siri 2.0 will go a step further, picking out the option best for the iPhone holder.

    Further, at least one intelligent automated assistant system embodiment disclosed herein may be configured or designed to include functionality for identifying, generating, and/or providing personalized recommendations for activities, products, services, source of entertainment, time management, or any other kind of recommendation service that benefits from an interactive dialog in natural language and automated access to data and services.

    "Personalized recommendations!" That sounds like planner's bliss.

    RELATED: Nobody Wants to Talk to Their TV


    Siri will unlock doors and pour beers and control thermostats for you. Some eager hackers have already beat Apple to this, but imagine a bot that operates real-life, non-digital devices remotely. Apple has. From the patent application: "and operating devices locally or remotely (e.g., dialing telephones, controlling light and temperature, controlling home security devices, playing music or video, etc.)." 

    RELATED: Is Apple Really Being 'Misleading and Deceptive' About Siri?


    Siri will go to the ATM for you. Perhaps this is an allusion to a mobile payment sort of deal, but Apple specifically mentions "automated teller machines" as something for which the patent says Siri will "provide assistance." 

     

    16 comments

    • Vote Them All Out
      Vote Them All Out  •  3 mths ago
      I love Apple products as do most of my friends and family for one reason and one reason only. THEY WORK!.....With the exception of Siri. Siri is a disaster and I'm not sure why this hasn't become a bigger issue than antennagate because the problem is far reaching. When the servers are working, and they go down often, they don't recognize speech as they are supposed to. Turning the feature off and on again as some have suggested, doesn't do the trick either. The "beta stage" that Siri is stuck in reminds me of some lame Zynga game on Facebook that never works and the developers keep on saying it's in beta stage. FIX IT APPLE. You can do MUCH better than this!
    • Kenshin Himura
      Kenshin Himura  •  4 mths ago
      Can it wipe my #$%$ I'm a software engineer, and the *LAST* thing I want is a piece of software making decisions for me!
    • Jesse
      Jesse  •  Brisbane, Australia  •  3 mths ago
      Go siri! "google done this for years" doing basic noobish searches on google doesn't count lol
    • A Yahoo! User  •  4 mths ago
      The more Apple designs the iPhone to do for its users, the closer it comes to moving into the "dumbphone" category, as in "You've got to be a complete idiot to need that brand phone to get stuff done."
      • Shady
        Shady 4 mths ago
        pointless dumb comment from someone who still has a flip phone
      • Kenshin Himura
        Kenshin Himura 4 mths ago
        @Shady.

        Your parents allow you to use the internet unsupervised?
    • Horus was plagiarized
      Horus was plagiarized  •  Kansas City, Missouri  •  4 mths ago
      my wife has the new s model and siri never works so the other day she tell siri "your a pile of s h i t" and siri responded "I respect you" we both laughed!! but it still does not work most of the time...
    • John M
      John M  •  4 mths ago
      Why does people make a big deal about what ever Apple does.
      Speech recognition been out for decades already.
      Google had it in their phones more then 2 years before Apple did.
    • charles
      charles  •  Fairfield, California  •  4 mths ago
      I don't need a machine to do all this crap for me. Are we really becoming this plugged in? Kinda pathetic.
    • Damon
      Damon  •  Portland, Maine  •  4 mths ago
      "Siri, please open the pod bay doors."
      "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
    • Employedsofar
      Employedsofar  •  Akron, Ohio  •  4 mths ago
      Ummmm. No thanks.
    • Scott
      Scott  •  4 mths ago
      Apple should just re-name Siri to Cybernetic Lifeform Node, Cylon for short. We're all going to die!!! Admiral Adama where are you?
    • Tobie
      Tobie  •  4 mths ago
      Can it wipe my arse?
    • Andy
      Andy  •  4 mths ago
      A woman that doesn't waffle in indecisiveness on where to get dinner AND can be muted? I wish Apple would hurry up that partnership with the fleshlight people so we can make human women obsolete already.
    • William S
      William S  •  Las Vegas, Nevada  •  4 mths ago
      iFools have iPhones.
      Android rules!
    • Ryan K
      Ryan K  •  Villa Park, California  •  4 mths ago
      typical apple, hyping something "new and exciting" that has been around for years.

      siri sucks. its wrong way to often and by the time i do get it to work, i could have just done it myself.
      • Employedsofar
        Employedsofar 4 mths ago
        Yeah, but it works perfect on the commercials, that's all that counts for the ilovers.
      • Ryan K
        Ryan K 4 mths ago
        the last apple product I bought was an ipod in 2003. and its the last one I will ever buy
    • Mike-54
      Mike-54  •  Chicago, Illinois  •  4 mths ago
      More garbage that is totally unnessary.
    • Christopherryan
      Christopherryan  •  Baltimore, Maryland  •  4 mths ago
      This is silly. The disclosure in a patent application is so very different than the claimed invention. There are multiple, very good reasons to disclose more than you plan to claim in the immediate future, including... wait for it... keeping your competitors guessing. Apple is too smart to telegraph every move they make - it's not like the publication of a patent application is something new that was not envisioned by their IP strategy.....
     Post a comment
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