intelligent voice recognition assistant, a lot of us got really excited about the potential

of what Siri might represent to us. Indeed, a lot of Siri’s potential has become a reality.

I use Siri on a regular basis now for sending texts. I very seldom type a text in anymore.

I use it for email in my phone. I use it for doing searches and asking it where things

are. But none of those things have really changed the way that I do things. They’re

more convenient now because I do it with my voice instead of having to look down at the

phone but they haven’t really changed anything. The thing that has changed for me with Siri

is ideas, how I remember things. When our mind is relaxed, when we’re driving somewhere

or when we’re out for a walk, we remember the things that we have to do or we come up

with great ideas. Some of us do it in our sleep and then we write it down on a notepad

beside our bed. Then of course we wake up in the morning and we realize that was not

a good idea but typically speaking when you’re walking or driving and you come up with a

good idea, it is a good or something that’s important. There's no convenient way to capture

that. Some people make a phone call to themselves and leave a voicemail message, which I always

thought was kind of an awful lot of work for remembering something. Siri does a brilliant

job of sending reminders and it does it in such a way that it will intelligently remind

us when we need to know. Let me show you how this works. So I’m driving

around in the car and I remember I’ve got to get the dogs a haircut. I enable Siri,

“Remind me when I get home to call the groomers and make an appointment for Farley.” That

was a little long-winded. Let’s see. [Sire: Here’s your reminder for when you get home.

Should I create it?] That’s fantastic. Yes, you shall. I will confirm that and now Farley

will get his haircut. [Siri: Okay, I’ll remind you.] Thank you. Don’t interrupt

anymore. That is brilliant. So now because I have location services enabled

on my iPhone, as I pull into my driveway, Siri will let me know. Let me show you. This

is an important step that you have to do. You have to go in your Settings and into your

Privacy Settings within your iPhone and you have to enable Location Services and turn

them on. Then you have to select which of the applications can access Location Services.

Now this is an important privacy issue and also battery life issue as well. You have

to tell which applications can actually know where you are physically at any time. If I

turned that on in Siri, which I have down here, Siri will let me know when I’m pulling

into the driveway. As I drive onto my driveway, reminders will bing and it will go, “Remember

to call the groomers.” When I sit down on my computer—that will sync with my desktop

computer—the reminder will come up on my desktop as well. It is a spectacular way to

organize yourself better. You don’t have to say when I get home. We

can also do the same thing like, “Siri, remind me at 4 PM to go shopping.” I don’t

know why I do that. [Siri: Here’s a reminder for tomorrow at 4 PM.] Perfect. [Siri: Shall

I create it?] No, I think I’m going to pass on that because it’s really not that good

a message. [Siri: Okay, I’m not going to.] Thank you very much. I should point out that

it said, “tomorrow at 4 PM” because it’s after 4 PM on the day that I’m recording

this. If I had been recording it at 9 in the morning and said remind me at 4 PM, it would

have said, “4 PM today.” Using Siri for these sorts of internal messages, personal

messages, or reminders is a tremendous way of taking advantage of the technology and

keeping ourselves that much more efficient. I hope you found this little video useful

today. If you have, please give us some props. Give us a like. Don’t forget you can also

sign up here on YouTube and subscribe to get all of our Dotto Tech videos. We do about

one a week. I’m Steve Dotto. Thanks so much for spending time with me today.

[END OF VIDEO] Steve Dotto0The Best Way to Use Siri0March

26, 2013

Page 1 of 2