Siri and I
The iPhone 4Successor. While the Black version is an arguably better design - I had to go with White this time around.
The box in it’s tasteful and beautiful White.
The white’s and black’s from the 8MP are unbelievable, especially outside in the daylight.
In addition to the overhauled camera, the 4S is noticeably quicker than the 4. Launching apps and swiping around just feels more fluid. The performance doesn’t initially seem noticeable because things just “happen”. Smoothness is harder to notice than sluggishness. Putting the 4S next to the 4 reveals the extra peppiness. Apps launch faster, and webpages load more quickly. Things aren’t monumentally improved but it’s indisputable that everything is better. The experience is very similar in going from the iPad to the iPad 2. I’ve also noticed that the retina display has a slightly cooler hue and is ever so slightly brighter on the 4S. It’s something most won’t even notice though.
The lack of grain in low light is just incredible.
7 lenses in that little camera!
Siri is my new best friend. It’s still in Beta. Very Beta in Canada. Nonetheless she is quite simply amazing. It makes tasks like setting a timer or making a reminder so much more efficient. I always think about making a reminder but end up not in laziness.
The first usage case where I discovered how useful Siri was after receiving a wedding invitation in the mail. After opening the invitation, I told Siri “I have a wedding on November 22nd, at 3PM at the such-and-such church.” Siri obediently scheduled the event for me in my calendar (which was of course pushed to my iCloud and back down to all my other i devices.) I was then able to ask Siri to “remind be to buy a gift a week before”. Done. Genius.
Don’t get me wrong, Siri isn’t AI. She doesn’t actually converse in a conversation with you. However Apple is pulling some impressive tricks to make it the most fluid speech recognition software I’ve ever seen. Not everything works but Siri understands a surprising number of things. Speech recognition itself is also the best I’ve seen. Siri manages to understand even murmurs. iOS now also supports text inputs via speech. I’ve been using it to SMS in the car and it really does make things faster. I can speak a lot quicker than I can tap with one hand.
Yes, Siri is a she. And so it goes…