Steve Dotto here.
When Apple released iOS 6 and they revealed Siri to the world, this intelligent voice
recognition assistant, a lot of us got really excited about the potential of what Siri might
represent to us.
Indeed, a lot of Siri’s potential has become a reality.
I use Siri on a regular basis now for sending texts.
I very seldom type a text in anymore.
I use it for email in my phone.
I use it for doing searches and asking it where things are.
But none of those things have really changed the way that I do things.
They’re more convenient now because I do it with my voice instead of having to look
down at the phone but they haven’t really changed anything.
The thing that has changed for me with Siri is ideas, how I remember things.
When our mind is relaxed, when we’re driving somewhere or when we’re out for a walk,
we remember the things that we have to do or we come up with great ideas.
Some of us do it in our sleep and then we write it down on a notepad beside our bed.
Then of course we wake up in the morning and we realize that was not a good idea but typically
speaking when you’re walking or driving and you come up with a good idea, it is a
good or something that’s important.
There's no convenient way to capture that.
Some people make a phone call to themselves and leave a voicemail message, which I always
thought was kind of an awful lot of work for remembering something.
Siri does a brilliant job of sending reminders and it does it in such a way that it will
intelligently remind us when we need to know.
Let me show you how this works.
So I’m driving around in the car and I remember I’ve got to get the dogs a haircut.
I enable Siri, “Remind me when I get home to call the groomers and make an appointment
for Farley.”
That was a little long-winded.
Let’s see.
[Sire: Here’s your reminder for when you get home.
Should I create it?]
That’s fantastic.
Yes, you shall.
I will confirm that and now Farley will get his haircut.
[Siri: Okay, I’ll remind you.]
Thank you.
Don’t interrupt anymore.
That is brilliant.
So now because I have location services enabled on my iPhone, as I pull into my driveway,
Siri will let me know.
Let me show you.
This is an important step that you have to do.
You have to go in your Settings and into your Privacy Settings within your iPhone and you
have to enable Location Services and turn them on.
Then you have to select which of the applications can access Location Services.
Now this is an important privacy issue and also battery life issue as well.
You have to tell which applications can actually know where you are physically at any time.
If I turned that on in Siri, which I have down here, Siri will let me know when I’m
pulling into the driveway.
As I drive onto my driveway, reminders will bing and it will go, “Remember to call the
groomers.”
When I sit down on my computer—that will sync with my desktop computer—the reminder
will come up on my desktop as well.
It is a spectacular way to organize yourself better.
You don’t have to say when I get home.
We can also do the same thing like, “Siri, remind me at 4 PM to go shopping.”
I don’t know why I do that.
[Siri: Here’s a reminder for tomorrow at 4 PM.]
Perfect.
[Siri: Shall I create it?]
No, I think I’m going to pass on that because it’s really not that good a message.
[Siri: Okay, I’m not going to.]
Thank you very much.
I should point out that it said, “tomorrow at 4 PM” because it’s after 4 PM on the
day that I’m recording this.
If I had been recording it at 9 in the morning and said remind me at 4 PM, it would have
said, “4 PM today.”
Using Siri for these sorts of internal messages, personal messages, or reminders is a tremendous
way of taking advantage of the technology and keeping ourselves that much more efficient.
I hope you found this little video useful today.
If you have, please give us some props.
Give us a like.
Don’t forget you can also sign up here on YouTube and subscribe to get all of our Dotto
Tech videos.
We do about one a week.
I’m Steve Dotto.
Thanks so much for spending time with me today.
[END OF VIDEO] Steve Dotto0The Best Way to Use Siri0March
26, 2013
Page 1 of 2