All those rumors of deep voice integration in iOS 5 have just been confirmed. Scott Forstall is back onstage demoing the new “intelligent assistant” service, which surprisingly retains its original name: Siri.
Activating Siri requires a quick hold of the home button, and then Siri is ready to listen. So far, Forstall’s demos seem to confirm what we’ve already heard: it’s surprisingly robust, and is a champion when it comes to interpreting voice input.
So far, Forstall has asked Siri the current time in Paris, how the NASDAQ is doing today, and the location of great Greek food in Palo Alto. So far, Siri has answered all queries with aplomb, and the crowd is really getting a kick out of it.
The integration with iOS seems to be just as impressive as we’ve been hearing: you can ask it to remind you to call someone before you leave the office, and it’ll automatically create an entry in the Reminders app, complete with a geo-fence just to be sure. You can also ask Siri to read your queued messages to you and make an appointment in the Calendar app.
The worst part so far? Siri indeed seems to require the iPhone 4S’s extra horsepower, because it appears to be a 4S exclusive. The kicker? Siri was originally a run-of-the-mill iPhone app. What a shame.
Siri will be a beta for the time being, as it only supports English, German, and French voice input, but there are more language add-ons and tweaks to come.
Many thanks to our friends at Engadget for the images!
