Some Apple Fans no Longer on Speaking Terms With Siri

Emmanuel Dunand | AFP | Getty Images Apple iPhone 4

If you watched TV, you've probably seen the commercial where Siri, the personal digital assistant on the Apple iPhone 4S, recites directions, locates the chords to a popular rock 'n' roll song and reads back text messages.

Siri is easily the most touted feature of the 4S, Apple's best-selling iPhone ever. And there's speculation it might be a feature in the next version of the Apple iPad, expected to be unveiled in early March.

So four months after Siri's debut, we wanted to see how consumers are taking to the talking assistant. Is it a must-have addition they couldn't live without, or a novelty that seemed fun at first, but now is barely used?

We reached out to an unscientific sampling of USA TODAY readers to find out, and the verdict is 50-50. Some people absolutely love it, while others say they are no longer on speaking terms with Siri.

Ken Burke of Vancouver, Wash., says he checked in with Siri at the beginning because it was fun, but he bored with it quickly. "I can count on one hand how many times I have used it in the last three months."

Norm Glismann of Dayton, Ohio, says he'd rather type in the information himself. "Siri typically misunderstands what I've asked, so the response isn't close to what I'm seeking. Once, it took me five tries to get a correct response."

But James Sherk of Redondo Beach, Calif., loves Siri and uses it to stay in touch with friends while behind the wheel. "I use it every day," he says. "To talk and drive and not be dangerous requires an assistant, and that's who Ms. Siri is. I tell her what to do, and she does it. It's maybe the best thing on the iPhone."

Apple

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[AAPL  Loading...      ()   ], which declined to comment on this story, has not released specific numbers for sales of the iPhone 4S. But some 187 million iPhones of all stripes have been sold since the device's 2007 launch. And in the quarter that ended last December, Apple sold a record 37 million iPhones. Verizon Wireless

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[VZ  Loading...      ()   ] and Sprint

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[S  Loading...      ()   ] now sell the phones in the U.S. in addition to AT&T, which was once the exclusive U.S. carrier.

Siri made its way to the iPhone after Apple bought the company (also named Siri) in early 2010. Before that, Siri was a free-standing app for the iPhone.

When Apple introduced Siri, it made a point of saying the feature was in "beta," and says on its website, "We'll continue to improve it over time."

Gary Earl, from Nashville, says he uses Siri so much — as many as 30 times a day — "my 8-year-old boy has been telling everyone I have a new girlfriend." He uses it for reminders, Web searches and setting his calendar.

Dan Gillespie, of Glen Allen, Va., is a diabetic and says Siri is a daily prompter. "The minute I get home from the doctor, it reminds me to take my medicine and check my blood. In the past, I'd always forgotten."

Austin Goff of Kent County, Mo., uses Siri only occasionally, due to frustrations. "I find it annoying that when I ask a question most of the time she says, 'OK, how about a Web search for … ?' Many times she responds, 'I'm really sorry about this, but I can't take any requests right now.' "

One big hurdle for Siri seems to be accents. It has trouble with deep-accented folks.

"A lot of times it doesn't understand what I'm trying to say," says Matthew Yamamata of Los Angeles.

Evan Neves, who lives in New York but hails from Brazil, finds it "annoying" when he asks Siri to dial a family member, "and it says I found five restaurants close to you."

Ginny Geer of Memphis says she has to repeat her request to Siri too many times and ends up "just typing in a phone number or looking something up for myself. I had a sassy teenager, I don't need a sassy phone."

When Siri launched, many consumers had fun asking the phone silly questions, which programmers fueled by injecting silly answers into the database, such as instructions on what to do with a dead body and responses ("Oh, stop") to marriage proposals.

Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg says the silliness was a "novelty" that got people talking and into stores. And it worked, he says. "It's one of their very big differentiators for the iPhone 4S from everything else and is a huge hit. Just look at the sales for the iPhone 4S."

Competing phones based on Google's

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[GOOG  Loading...      ()   ] Android and Microsoft's

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[MSFT  Loading...      ()   ] Windows Phone operating systems have speech recognition as well, "but they're not nearly as refined as Siri is," he says.

Siri may be ground-breaking and the most widespread use yet of voice search, but for consumer Eric Casperson of Houston, it still has a long ways to go.

While he uses Siri occasionally for reminders, more often than not, it's just "a fun toy," he says. "Good to settle a bar bet, asking her to do the research for you."