What I was
not prepared for was Siri. Oh, sure, I’d
seen the Martin Scorsese commercials about Siri, but that made me afraid, not
informed. When the guy at the Apple
store told me Siri was included on the new iPhone 5, I briefly considered backtracking
to the iPhone 4 or even 1. In the end,
he talked me into the iPhone 5 for a variety of reasons (“It’s cool and
your friends who are not yet eligible for an upgrade will be super-jealous”).
At first, I
ignored Siri. I had lived for
30-something years without her (okay, 40-something); why did I need her
now?
But then the
Apple store sent me a friendly email informing me that they offered a free iPhone
class for Beginners.
I called the
Apple store to sign up, and a chirpy girl name Terri (eerily similar to “Siri”)
assured me that there was no level before Beginner (“No, ma’am, we do not offer
a Pre-Beginner class or iPhone classes for English as a second language, and by
the way your English sounds pretty good to me”), so I was stuck. I showed up and sat next to a college student
who I was fairly sure should have been teaching the class, not asking questions
about “How to store my virtual photos in albums” or “How to send my contact a
contact” (?) or “What is the fastest way to delete multiple texts”. He was like that annoying A+ student who
always sits in the front making the rest of us feel like idiots.
“Don’t you
just love Siri?” he whispered to me and then gave me a quick pat on the back
like I was a puppy.
I gave a
weak nod, and then the teacher Dhan (“Like ‘Dan’ but with an ‘h’,”) said we
should “meet” Siri.
“Press this
button, and then you can ask Siri anything.”
Anything? Like if the fiscal cliff is real or if it is
just a bunch of media hype?
“Siri, what
is the population of Atlanta?” asked the woman to my right.
A
no-nonsense voice replied, “Let me check that for you,” and next thing you
know, a screen popped up with all kinds of interesting facts about Atlanta,
including the population. Too bad Siri
was not around in the days of Trivial Pursuit because I might have actually won
with her assistance.
Next, I heard
Dhan say, “Take a note, Siri” and Siri respond, “What would you like the note
to say?”
YOU COULD
DICTATE NOTES?!
Finally, Mr.
College Know-It-All requested that Siri give him directions to the closest
Starbucks. Now Siri was speaking my
language. She told Mr. College that “There
are 17 Starbucks near you, which one do you want?” and then he selected the one
that was inside the Apple store.
I was
puzzled how Siri knew our precise location, but then Dhan told us there was a global
locating feature, and if you enabled it, then Siri could give you directions. Mr. College gingerly took my phone out of my
hand, pressed a few keys, and voilà! GPS enabled.
“You have to be careful, though,
because the GPS can be a real drain on your battery.” I smiled like I knew what that meant.
On the way home, I thought I would test Siri and ask her for directions back to my house. Sure enough, Siri gave me a new route I had never tried that actually ended up saving me 15 minutes.
Now Siri and I are
inseparable. I whisper blog ideas to
her, dentist appointment reminders, and Target lists. She dutifully
writes everything down. I tell her to
call Jennifer, and she asks which one.
If she does not have an immediate answer for me, she coyly stalls by
saying, “Let me check that for you.” And
if I miss a turn when she gives directions, she pretends we were supposed to go
that way and she adjusts the route (without even once complaining or saying, “How
did you not see that sign?!”).
The only thing she can’t do: help me find where I left my new iPhone in my
house.
Siri? Siri?
MOV
