When Apple announced the new iPhone the hubbub was over the hardware and the name (iPhone 4S and not iPhone 5).
Then there was this little buzz about Siri that kept popping up. Most of us ignored the announcement because of all the (negative) hoopla around voice-recognition.
Yet, many are predicting that this software, indeed an App, is the most revolutionary technology in the new phone. They may have a point. After all, it’s not the invention that creates the change, it’s the application of it and the ensuing massive adoption that does (think Henry Ford).
With that in mind, Apple might be on to something. They are bringing to the table a top-of-the-line smartphone, all of their native Apps, the best logic engine on the internet (Wolfram Alpha), and a massive user base.
A powerful combination that may cause the shift that creates the avalanche.
For more on this check out Paul Miller’s insightful, Why Siri just might work.
For me, I will definitely be using Siri as a Personal Assistant. There are at least five actions from the below list that I perform all the time:
- Set an alarm
- Take a note
- Send text
- Get driving directions
- Google anything
How about you, do you use any of these Apps?
- Address Book
- Calendar
- Clock
- Maps
- Messages
- iPod
- Notes
- Phone
- Reminders
- Stocks
- Weather
- Internet
Do you perform any of these actions?
Address Book:
- Querying Contacts - What’s Amy’s address?
- Finding Contacts - Show Amy Senger
- Relationships - My mom is Fran Tarkenton
Calendars
- Adding events – create a meeting at 9
- Changing events – move meeting from 9am to 12pm
- Asking about events - what is my schedule for the rest of the day?
Alarms
- Setting an alarm – wake me up tomorrow at 7am
- Check the clock – what is today’s date?
- Using a timer – set the timer for 20 minutes
Reminders
- General reminder – remind me to take my umbrella
- Reminder to call – remind me to call mom
- Reminder to call, location – remind me to call mom when I get home
- Reminder to call, geo-fence – remind me to call mom when I leave here
- Reminder with time – remind me to call mom tomorrow morning
- Sending messages – e-mail Shawn: Surfing on Saturday?
- Checking messages – show last e-mail from Shawn
- Responding to messages – reply to Shawn, time change on Saturday works
Friends
- Check on Friends – where is Jesse?
- Temporary geo-fencing for events – GPS location of all friends during an event
Maps
- Directions – how do I get home?
- Local business – show nearest Starbucks
Messages
- Sending texts – tell Amy I’m coming home
- Reading texts – read new message
- Replying to texts – reply: yes I will pick up some milk
iPod
- Play music – play: Beatles – Let it Be
Notes
- Create notes – there once was a boy named Stevie
- Find notes – locate note about boy named Stevie
Phone
- Phone calls – call girlfriend
Stocks
- Check stock price – what is Apple’s stock price?
- Check index price – how is the NASDAQ doing?
- Check details on stock – what is Apple’s P/E ratio?
Weather
- Forecast – what is the weather?
- Forecast date – what will the weather be tomorrow?
- Forecast time – what is the weather tonight?
- Forecast location – what is the weather in Berlin?
- Forecast details – is it windy today?
Internet search
- Information search – find definition of hubbub
- Wolfram Alpha – square root of 52?
- Near unlimited google queries…
For an even more complete list TUAW has, What can you say to Siri?
Honestly i hate the pill. Every girl I have ever been with had some serious problem with it. Not only did it affect their bodies it affected our relationship and my sex life.
So when it comes to calling it the liberating savior of the female world I laugh. Maybe it is and it just hasn’t reached the poor the people of the world.
I can tell you this. My brother is in the Peace Corps in Namibia. His crew is teaching about health. I have often thought about what this means in a society without big-pharma.
You think he is telling the Namibian women to “just get on the pill”?
It forced me to think about the world outside of the big-pharma. Now dont get me wrong drugs save lives, but in our society drugs are “lifestyle choices”. If we didnt have that choice, like Namibian women dont, what would I tell them about healthy sex?
I would say that it is inarguable the freedom it gave women when it was first widely distributed, but you are right in saying that we have not progressed since then. There should either be a viable men’s version by now (50 years is plenty of time to develop this) our at least something that has much fewer negative effects on the woman’s body.
Kudos to you! I hadn’t toghhut of that!
What a thoughtful piece. Yes, I too am in favor of technologies and norms that allow women not to be forced to have children and that protect unwanted children from being conceived (and possibly aborted). Bravo to birth control! Bravo to all that!
But it’s time for us to move on to something much better. The Pill just isn’t good enough. It has wide-spread side effects that are physical and psychological. What about safe, non-hormonal options? Cervical caps, for example, are safe and highly effective. But no company in the US produces them any more because they cost about $5 and you only need one every few years. The Pill – $50/month or more, in the pockets of drug companies. Why would they cut off that gravy train?
The establishment push to be on the Pill is huge. From the time I was very young – before I started needing birth control for anything – every doctor I saw tried to push the Pill. Yes, they want to prevent unwanted pregnancies. But even as an adult, I have been bullied into being on the Pill by docs who deny or minimize the serious side-effects.
Like you, I tried them all – and wound up with depression, mood swings, weight gain, and a libido so dead that I had no use for birth control in the first place. It was like being a half-dead zombie, or some female equivalent of castration.
These days, my partner often comments that I have sex-drive “like a man.” No – I have a sex drive like a healthy, biologically-intact woman – a woman who isn’t on the Pill!
SO: What is to be done? Social norms that make reproductive decision-making solely the woman’s concern and drug companies who profit extensively from the Pill … Where does the impetus for change even start to come from?
[email from a friend]
Amy, so well said! I loved your commentary. I think the beauty of living in this country is that women do have the options of birth control which are both effective and affordable. For me personally, it’s anything but liberating. Taking hormones daily which alter my mood and libido is definitely not what I consider to be an acceptable option for me any longer (although I agree it’s probably a dream come true for both pharmaceuticals and men!). Don’t get me wrong, I used the pill for several years, and it served its purpose, and I know many women who are happy with it. But now after being off of it for several years, I truly notice a huge difference with my body and I won’t ever go back to taking it. Now that I’m older, and realize my body deserves better. And maybe someday there will be better options out there for women, and hopefully more focus will be placed on the man sharing in the responsibility. But that won’t happen until women start demanding it and realize they deserve better.
-J
this is interesting, from twitter:
jamesbt: @robotchampion See — http://bit.ly/ajGJ7x — http://bit.ly/9Mse3X — (non-pharma family planning methods). Does you brother in Namibia know them?
Amy – thanks for writing this. There is no woman who’s life experience isn’t deeply affected by her fertility.
The invention and availability of the pill was an inflection point in human rights and women’s free will and free choice. That does not mean it is the final word, so to speak, and the ability to reflect on its contributions and impacts – both positive and negative is in itself a luxury and a responsibility. Who was it who said that freedom must be earned by every generation?
This type of reflection is what is required to enable the next generation of progress in understanding gender, equality and free will.
btw – I looked it up. It was Coretta Scott King who said –
“ Freedom is never really won you earn it and win it in every generation.”
The pill should not stand as the end of the conversation or science of reproductive and contraceptive rights.
You’ve got it in one. Couldn’t have put it bteter.
I have worked in Pharmacies where certain Pharmacists refuse to dispense birth control while they are working, due to their religious beliefs.
I grew up in a state (Utah) where birth control was never talked about when I was a teenager. I was brought up that you only have sex when you are married, so I never really worried about it. As I grew older, the “waiting till you were married” was thrown out the window.
I’ve taken birth control for 8 years and luckily I haven’t had any side effects. (Including libido, moody, etc) This may have something to do with me taking the active pills (skipping the last week) for 3 months and giving my body a week break. Besides that the point is Drug Companies are “trying” to replicate hormones in our body, and whenever you put something foreign in your body, there’s a potential for side effects.
I’m glad that women have the right to decide if they want a child or not. It hurts knowing people like your grandmother had to go through that. I also agree that guys have a responsibility to protect themselves too. STD’s are still at risk, and even condoms won’t give you 100% guarantee from them.
Great post Amy!
just to be a pill here…
(i had to do it)
just what is the male “role”?
don’t get infected?
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