dameron: a survey by Loopt found that a 45 percent majority of those buying an iPhone 4S in the first days after its release were doing so because of Siri.

There's far too much stupid in that once sentence.

Especially since you could get things like Pannous Voice Actions (NOT the standard Google Voice Actions) on Android phones six months earlier that have the same natural voice recognition and functionality. I don't use it that often, though it's useful when driving. And it's quicker to say "Wake me at seven am" than to do in onscreen. Just.

Meh, my 4s calls me big daddy wonky balls. Pretty funny to have it say that in public places. Other than making it say funny stuff it doesn't do a whole lot other than managing my calendar.

inflatedKarma: I still have the regular iPhone4 (no siri). couldn't justify the upgrade for what I new would be a lacking new feature. always is with Apple. they have a track record of being late to the party and usually getting it wrong the first time. but eventually they usually get it right, and considering the alternatives I will stick with my iPhone.
I work in an IT department where everyone sans 2 people have iPhones. they both have android and are constantly biatching and complaining about them.

I have a HTC Desire and it's great. Coming up to two years old now and it's still great. I'm eligible for a free upgrade now but I've looked at the phones on the market now and they don't do anything my phone doesn't, 4S included. Bigger screen maybe, the HTC Sensation is tempting and the Samsung Galaxy II looks nice, but that's about it. HTC come with a two year guarantee as standard so I'd probably stick with them.

Never rooted it, why would I? The only thing I did was unlock it so I can put a local SIM card in if I go abroad.
Was amazed to find out Apple charge you 99c for a ringtone of a song even if you already have that song on your phone, or that you can get around it but it is a process that takes five minutes to explain on Youtube. On my HTC I select any MP3 and click "Set as ringtone". That's it. That seems to be Apple's policy on lots of things. No thanks. Just like Siri. Siri would work just as well on your 4, except Apple deliberately prevented you from doing that to make you upgrade to the 4S.

Sounds like you and most of your colleagues have Ford Focuses which work fine. Two of your colleagues have Lamborghinis and occasionally complain about the cost in fuel or the lack of luggage space.
I know which I'd prefer....

I was the same with Mac vs PC.

Siri doesn't work as well as the commercials lead you to believe?

Well, file that under "no shiat"

First time I saw one of those commericals I though "People are gonna get that and be pissed off that it isn't actualy a Mass Effect level VI"
Now when they come out with an EDI level AI in a sexy robot body...I'm gonna have to lay down some cash.

Clint_Torres: Bill_Wick's_Friend: Things I use Siri for:

"wake me at 7:15" - easier than going into "clock" and fiddling with alarm times and settings.

Menu>clock>alarm>time>(hold to set)>done>done>return>return.

Real farking hard.

hell I just have my alarm on repeat daily. If I must change it's on my home screen (WP7.5), so it's Click Alarms, click on time, click on save, push lock button.

Bill_Wick's_Friend:

But I bet I can press one button and say the words "wake me at 7:15" faster than you can do go into clock and set a time.

So you save yourself 15 seconds maybe once a week? Congrats for spending $200 more than me to save that time.

Bill_Wick's_Friend: TNel: So you save yourself 15 seconds maybe once a week? Congrats for spending $200 more than me to save that time.

I wake up a different time every morning depending on what I have going on that day.

But yep. You got me. Using Siri to turn on my alarm is the only thing I do with that phone. I don't make calls, I don't check emails, I don't use the internet browser, I don't check the maps. Just that one thing with Siri. I have sooooo wasted my money. And now that you've pointed out that I have wasted my money I'm going to go back to my old Nokia brick phone. Then I'll be cool like you.

Because no other phone can do any of those things. Your list of stuff that you use siri for would easily work with Android that has been around before the mythical siri was advertised. Keep justifying that purchase because my wife's free Galaxy S2 is AMAZING and about to swap my Focus for one.

inflatedKarma: I would suspect you are correct about the lack of siri on the 4 being a ploy to force you to upgrade. they seem to have a track record of that. I think your vehicle comparison is a little off though, and I am sure my friends with android phones would hardly compare them to Lambos. their main complaints are the bugginess of the OS and the problems developing apps for it compared to the IOS platform.
if I were going to compare the two, iPhone would be the popular biatchy cheerleader and android would be the hot hipster girl with the attitude.

the Mac vs PC thing always tickles me. I have worked in IT for going on 20 years, over the last 8 years or so I have seen a steady decline in the number of IT pros that used windows. when I switched from Windows to OSX about 5 years ago, I keep a box running windows to do the things the Mac couldn't do. after a few months I realized there wasn't anything. Admittedly, there is a larger selection of software for Windows and the whole Macs can't get viruses thing is bogus, but at least the Mac doesn't make me want to bang my head against the wall nearly as often as windows.
I have no problem with windows users, and when friends are looking for a new computer and ask my advice on what they should get, I usually ask them 1. what are you using it for and 2. what are you use to. For the average user that has been using windows for years, I don't see any reason to change. each platform has it own issues and advantages.

Just what are you doing with a PC to "bank your head against the wall"? I still use a PC I bought twelve years ago. I love PCs because they are so easy to upgrade and repair. The power supply died after only three months so I walked into Maplins (kind of like radio Shack) and said "PC power supply please" and the guy plonked one on the counter. No "What type?" or "What make?" Cost me $25 and lasted until I decided to replace it with a more powerful one because I wanted to add an extra hard drive and a twin monitor video card. All that is left of the original machine is the case and the floppy drive. Macs may be easier to upgrade now they moved to Intel chips but I doubt you can replace literally everything with such a huge range of cheap off the shelf parts.
And I only reboot my PC maybe once a month, usually because I feel I should rather than any specific reason. I still use XP because I can't see any justification to spending money on 7.

I have also mentioned some areas where Windows is easier to use. The print dialog box on mac's hides things like select which pages to print, where Windows has it right there. With a Mac it is an extra step to take just to print a single page. Okay it's not the end of the world but I still prefer the Windows philosophy of letting me chose what to do to the Apple way of "That looks ugly, hide it. Don't care if it creates more work for the user, I want it to look pretty"

Same with the iPhone and the lack of flexibility on arranging icons on the screens. With my HTC I can group icons by function. I can have a screen empty except for one icon in each corner, or four at the top and four at the bottom and so on. With the iPhone it will auto arrange them and that is it. Want to arrange them like Android? You have to get an app to do that...

The fragmentation problem is also Androids biggest advantage. With Android, and with each manufacturer, you have a choice. Want a tiny phone? Want a big phone with a huge screen? Want a uber fast processor? Want an 8mp camera? Want a basic one? You can look at all the models and decide what one is best for you and which one you prefer.
With Apple it is "This is it. Unless you want last years model which we are still selling."
To me the fragmentation issue is a price well worth paying since it gives me a huge choice of phones to consider.
Having said that as I mentioned above I have no plans to upgrade my Desire even though I now qualify for a free upgrade. The latest iPhone 4S, for example, doesn't do anything my nearly two year old HTC doesn't do, apart from the front camera which I don't need. What is the point of upgrading?

Bill_Wick's_Friend: TNel: Because no other phone can do any of those things

You seem to be labouring under the misconception that Siri was the only reason for upgrading my phone. I don't know where you got this impression. It's wrong.

"Your Porsche comes with heated seats and you think that's something special?! My Honda has been doing that for five years! You must be so angry to find out that other cars have the same feature for much less money!!"

I think the point is that in your analogy Porsche launched their car with "IT HAS HEATED SEATS!! THIS IS REVOLUTIONARY!!!" and all the Porsche buyers believed them. Natural voice recognition and interaction was available on Android phones but it was recognised as just a function that was useful in certain cases and that was it. I doubt it occurred to Android to think they could promote it as a huge step forward. Which is Apples real strength, marketing. And a fanbase that will camp out all night to be first in line to get the latest phone. And buy cases for that phone that have a hole cut in them specifically to let everyone see the Apple logo....

Bill_Wick's_Friend: Flint Ironstag: I think the point is that in your analogy Porsche launched their car with "IT HAS HEATED SEATS!! THIS IS REVOLUTIONARY!!!" and all the Porsche buyers believed them

I see the problem now. You're having this discussion with a fictional character in an Apple commercial or with some dork wating in the snow for a product launch and not with me. Gotcha.

I liked my old iPhone. I upgraded cuz I was offered a sweet deal on an upgrade. Siri is just one very small part of why I like my new phone more than my old phone. Siri wasn't in any way a factor in upgrading. It didn't even occur to me that my new phone would include Siri until I took it out of the box and saw "Siri" in my settings.

Where did I say that I meant you? Or are you denying that many, many people did go crazy of Siri and believed it was something revolutionary and new?

inflatedKarma: As I said, if it works for you more power to you. As a systems engineer and programer I prefer the Mac. while I agree that Apple does have that attitude of "we know what's best for you", in a lot of cases they are correct. As I see it, Apple hits 3 types of people. the hipsters, of course, who have because it is not Microsoft, the people who know nothing of computers and just want something they don't have a lot of choices they have to make, and a subsection of IT professional (usually Linux Admins) who don't want a lack of choices because they are tire of dealing with computers all day. I fall into that last category.
if you are still using the same PC you bought 12 years ago, my guess is that you are a "low intensity" user. that is not a slam, I just mean you are most likely not running CPU or Ram intensive application or compiling code etc...
as a Linux and OSX user, the idea of rebooting at all is strange to me. I remember the days of installing software or patches to windows and having to reboot 3 or 4 times. installing software on the mac is, more often than not, just a matter of copying a app file to your applications folder. or, you can just run it from where it is, no mucking around with registries deleting applications either, just move it to trash. I can't remember the last time I rebooted my Macbook (probably when I added more ram) and I have a mac mini at home that I know has been up for over a year. that is still nothing compared to my linux server with an uptime of 827 days.

BTW, what I meant when I said that the whole mac/pc thing tickled me was that it was not a debate that anyone could win. you can't say that Mac is better than Windows, better at what? certainly not gaming, not flexibility in hardware. is Windows better? not in rendering graphics or video. not when your programming for them. Linux is a great OS.... for a server, not so much for a laptop. Point is that they all have their functions, their strengths and weaknesses.

I'm certainly not a gamer, if that's what you mean by power user. I upgraded the mobo and processor from its original P4 to a Core2Due a few years ago. I run two monitors and will often have two or three Chrome windows open, each with a bunch of tabs, Media Player Classic playing some music in the background, MP3 or videos, BT downloading a movie in the background, and often Word, Paint Shop and/or PDF Viewer open as well. With Outlook and Dropbox working as well. I also often have Chrome and Firefox open at the same time as well since Firefox has a great app for downloading Youtube videos. Works fine for me.
I did try Windows 7 and found the taskbar was better for managing so many open tabs, but just not worth paying for the whole OS. That and they took a backwards step in how they organised files in Windows Explorer as well.

Point is even if I was a serious power user it would be far easier for me to buy a top of the line motherboard and processor and install that in my PC. Why change the entire PC?

And why buy a phone where it takes four minutes to set a MP3 song as the ringtone when I can do that in three seconds on my HTC? Why buy a phone where I have to let the phone's manufacturer decide what apps I can and cannot install on my phone? Where I have to pay 99c for many apps that are free on Android? Where I could download the Android version of Siri six months before Apple launched the 4S and get it for free where Apple made its customers buy a whole new phone? Where my phone was way ahead of the then iphone in processor speed, RAM, memory, screen size, resolution etc etc?

I have never rooted my phone. Maybe your colleagues have? If so they can't really complain if there are unexpected downsides.

Bill_Wick's_Friend: Flint Ironstag: Where did I say that I meant you?

"All the Porsche buyers believed them".

Since the car in this analogy stands in for the phone, it's fair to say that you're claiming that "all of the iPhone buyers" believed the hype about Siri.

As one of the "all", I'm saying that you're wrong.

You were happy to put words into anti Apple people's mouths when you said "Your Porsche comes with heated seats and you think that's something special?! My Honda has been doing that for five years! You must be so angry to find out that other cars have the same feature for much less money!!"

I didn't have a go at you for that. It was a generalization, nothing more. Just as saying "all" in an analogy is not the same as saying "every single iPhone buyer".

Bill_Wick's_Friend: Flint Ironstag: You were happy to put words into anti Apple people's mouths when you said "Your Porsche comes with heated seats and you think that's something special?! My Honda has been doing that for five years! You must be so angry to find out that other cars have the same feature for much less money!!"

I was responding to another poster (one who also seems to think that Siri is the only possible reason anyone could or would upgrade to an iPhone 4gs) whose point was that "other phones do the same thing" and that I'm a sucker for buying an expensive phone just for a feature that others have done first and better.

I don't have a dog in this hunt. I have a PC and a mac on my desk right now. My phone is an iPhone because it was the first smartphone to come on the market and I've become comfortable with their platform. It works and it works well. There are other products on the market that work just as well, but they've all been mostly playing catch-up to Apple's products both in terms of tablets and phones.

Please feel free to resume your fanboi vs hater thread without me.

My brother had a Nokia in the nineties that had email, word processing, fax built in, apps etc etc. That you think the iPhones was "the first smartphone" just proves you believe their hype. Even in form factor and look the iPhone wasn't the first.

Ditto the catch up claim. The latest iPhone has more or less caught up with my nearly two year old HTC. It wiped the floor with the then iPhone when I bought it in every area. It is Apple who have been playing catch up in everything except marketing.