The recent iPhone 4S launch was a very evolutionary device launch, with key performance improvements being a major delivery point, but along with that has come Siri. Siri is a full on voice controlled assistant making use of cloud processing to give the small device the ability to rapidly process your voice commands. There is a degree of excitement about part of the Apple delivery, but I believe that this is of academic use and in many ways just like 3D technology for TVs – nice, clever but overall not a major feature or use case.

Think of it this way, you are walking around an airport and suddenly you need to send a text message to say your flight is going to be delayed. Do you:

a) Get your phone out and say ‘Siri, send message to Joe Bloggs, my plane is delayed by at least 60 minutes, send.’

b) Use finger and touch SMS icon, and quickly type ‘My plane is delayed by at least 60 minutes, send.’

Which of these two approaches is going to make you look like an absolute madman? Which is the least private? Which is the least error prone with all the noise going on around you?

Think of this another way, you are sat in your open plan office with the low level murmur that all open plan offices have from people on telephones or having short corridor discussions, and all of a sudden you need to search your address book for a contact and make a call to them. Do you:

a) Get your phone up and say ‘Siri, Call Joe Bloggs, Mobile’

b) Get your phone up and type a search for Joe into the Contacts app and select the correct number and press call’

Which of these two approaches is going to annoy the hell out of the person next to you? Which is the least private? Which is the least error prone with the general office noise of the standard open plan office?

You might notice that I am not a believer in voice control of devices in the business. I think that the entire interaction with a device through voice is just incompatible with group working as well as too error prone for the working environments we are in. As for full interaction through voice with a desktop device, I also believe that the speed of interaction of voice is simply too slow compared to the very highly optimised keyboard and pointer/mouse interaction (and even QWERTY is optimised compared to voice). I do see the introduction of touch to the interactions with devices, but not the wholesale interaction pushed by many touch PCs – touch is something that is added to the peripherals in front of you and augmented (but not replaced) by the use of touch on displays, particularly the larger whiteboard level displays that are common in schools but not in offices.

Voice though, is definitely not something that is a fit to people and the environments in which they work. Or to put it another way, “I am sorry Dave, you need to go back to the keyboard.”