The 4S was my first iPhone and like everyone else I was captivated by Siri. Like everyone else, the first thing I did was ask it arbitrary questions.
What are you wearing?
What is the meaning of life
I soon realized that there were limitations to what Siri can do and that the commercials were overly glamorized. Here in Canada location services are unavailable, meaning we can’t even ask where the nearest restaurant is. Nor set location-based reminders.
So, what do I use Siri for?
I’ll tell you that I definitely don’t use it for texting. My message always comes out gibberish and nonsensical. You know how in the Siri commercial the guy is running and telling his iPhone to text a message? That’s impossible. Have you ever tried to clearly say a sentence while running? I don’t have an accent,(at least I’m pretty sure I don’t) but it can’t get my message right when I’m sitting still. To make matters worse, my boyfriend’s name is Nash which always comes out as “mash”.

As a tech nerd, I decided to expand the capabilities by jailbreaking my phone and adding a little tweak called AssistantExtensions. It allowed me to do many things like tweet from my phone. However, for the same reasons as messaging, I don’t use it to tweet. You also can’t edit tweets, so whatever drunken gibberish was typed would send to all your followers.
So, do I still use Siri?
Yes, I do. I use it to set reminders, alarms and timers, mainly because I haven’t actually figured out how to set them manually yet. I also ask for the weather when I’m lazy to google and let it call people when I don’t want to sift through the phone book. However, it doesn’t always reach the right person, resulting in some really awkward phone calls.
Lastly, I use it to open programs. It’s one of the hacked tweaks but it’s quite useful since I managed all my apps into folders and sometimes can’t remember where I put them. If I yell “OPEN FACEBOOK!”, it will do just that. I won’t however do this in public. After all, I still think Bluetooth people look crazy, and I haven’t seen anybody yell at their 4S’s just yet.
