Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 14
Taking the iPad mini Siri-ously
In This Chapter
Using Control Center
Calling Siri
Determining what you can say
Editing mistakes
Using dictation
Making Siri better
How could you not love Siri? The intelligent, voice-activated virtual personal assistant living like a
genie inside the iPad mini and in iPads since the third generation not only
hear
s what you have to say
but also attempts to figure out the intent of your words. Siri then does her darnedest to respond to
your wishes. She — yes, it's a female voice (at least until you change it) — can help you dictate and
send a message, get directions, call a friend, discover who won the ballgame, tell you when a movie is
playing, arrange a wake-up call, search the web, find a decent place to eat, and lots more, provided
you have a decent Internet connection. Siri talks back, too, sometimes with humor and other times
with attitude. When Ed told Siri he was tired, she responded with, “That's fine. I just hope you're not
doing anything dangerous.”
Siri isn't perfect. Sometimes Siri mis-hears us, occasionally more often than we'd like, and other times
she doesn't quite know what we have in mind. But blemishes and all, we think she's pretty special —
and she's become smarter along the way.
Come to think of it, we should probably stop referring to Siri as
she,
even though she started that way.
You can now choose a male or female voice to represent Siri. We also resist saying much more about
Siri until later in this chapter because we want to get to one of the best new features that arrived with
iOS 7: Control Center, which Apple correctly points out is merely a swipe away.
