What's Up Mac?

What's Up Mac!

By Bill Rose

To mildly edit Grand Funk Railroad I'm in love with a girl I'm talking to.

In point of fact I'm not actually talking to her... yet... and when I do I'll have the full support of my wife of 25 years. So who is this Wonder Woman who has captured my heart?

First of all my heart is taken but this Mystery Girl has stolen a part of my brain. Say hello to Apple's Digital Assistant.... Siri.

I don't have an iPhone 4S and I won't because I'm under contract with Verizon till next December with my current iPhone 4 but there is a chance between now and then that Apple will port Siri to Apple 4 users and for sure it will be a major component in iPhone 5.

Soon Siri will be mine.

I don't need a Digital Assistant as such. I do think it will be an unbelievable boon to use my iPhone more effectively as a Navigation device during trips. It certainly will come in handy in cities and places I don't know and Siri will make regular usage of my iPhone more fun and efficient. Mostly I want Siri because of the Cool Factor. I also firmly believe Siri will be migrated to the iPad and maybe ultimately to the desktop Mac platform. As preparation for that I have been practicing my Scottish Burr so I can sound more like Scotty in Star Trek.

I wonder if Siri will be offended if I say "Hello, computer" in my rather crude Scottish accent? No matter because Siri is a game changer. I believe the paradigm of interaction with mobile and computer interfaces is at a crossroads and the smart person will follow Siri.

My one real question though is why did Apple name their Digital Assistant Siri? Some further investigation revealed some startling facts. Siri is not a woman. Siri is Daniel and Daniel is Jon Briggs who recorded the voice overs for Scansofts speech recognition software Nuance.

I still want Siri, I still wonder how Apple got that name and I'm going to keep the sexy woman silhouette graphic at the top of this column but now I'm no longer perplexed why my wife was so indulgent about Siri in the first place. As always she knew something I didn't. ; )