The iOS 6 Review: Maps Thoroughly Investigated and More
by Brian Klug & Saumitra Bhagwat on September 19, 2012 2:21 PM ESTSiri
We put Siri through her paces quite extensively when we reviewed the iPhone 4S, and since then, she’s learnt some new tricks along the way. Also, Siri is no longer exclusive to the iPhone. At Apple’s Fall event last week, it was revealed that in addition to the 3rd generation iPad, Siri will also be available on the new 5th generation iPod touch. So with the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5, that’s four devices with support for Siri now. Good stuff.
Well hello there Siri running on an iPad!
Location based Siri queries really depend on, as you might guess, your location. A lot of queries worked fine in the US, however we also did testing in Dubai where the results have been quite appalling. There’s very little that you can do with Siri in Dubai. Anything location-based simply doesn’t work, but other, more general queries work just fine.
I was actually quite impressed by Siri’s sports quotient; it pulls up game schedules and team rosters very accurately. Now this isn’t limited to American sports, because it pulled up information about teams and schedules for the English Premier League as well. Other stuff like Cricket and Table Tennis evoked a much humbler response; probably something we can expect to see a few years down the line. Siri can now also launch apps, but unless you have a ton of apps, it’s probably faster to do it the old-fashioned way. Just for fun, I was looking at some of the queries Anand ran for Siri in our iPhone 4S review and decided to replicate the one for calculating tips. I was pleasantly surprised to see the results, because it returned the answer in USD as well as AED (UAE Dirham). Its little things like these that go a long way towards fostering the kind of overzealous customer loyalty that Apple enjoys.
Siri's good with non-American sports too.
People may use Siri to do a lot of different things and I would argue that, because of the subjective nature of the results, primarily based on your location and other external factors, a review would simply not do justice to all the readers. So instead of focusing on Siri’s performance, we will be focusing more on its implementation on the iPad.
Now the iPad has a mammoth 9.7” screen compared to the 3.5” screen on the iPhone 4S and the 4” screens on the new iPhone 5 and 5th generation iPod touch. I expected Siri on the iPad to be more than a simple port of the iPhone version; but that’s exactly what Apple’s done. I’ve had a similar complaint with Notifications Center on the iPad as well. Apple’s entire argument with the iPad was that apps get a bigger canvas and developers can do a lot more with the extra screen real estate. But with Siri, Apple does not seem to be making good use of that space at all. You get the same-sized UI from the iPhone, and after one query, you’re left scrolling away to glory to keep track of your results.
It could have been helpful if Siri had a slightly more optimized UI to leverage the added screen space afforded by the iPad. Just as an example, I tried to get Manchester United’s team roster, and low and behold, I was scrolling forever to get through that list. At the very least, they could make the UI taller so that it displays more information. Apart from that, I do not have any major gripes with the way Siri works on the iPad, and it’s definitely a welcome addition.
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crankerchick - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
I was going to comment and quote the same statement. I'm an avid tech junkie. i've owned a variety of mobile electronics devices. I recently purchased first an iPad and then a MacBook Pro to replace my Xoom and Dell laptop and now I find myself feeling almost "forced" (I know no one forces me to spend my money) to buy an iPhone 5 because trying to find cross platform applications to sync with my Galaxy Nexus (which I really like) is just tough. Add in that iOS doesn't permit data sharing in the background, it makes being completely on iOS (for iCloud) or completely on Android for things to work together. Obviously, the Galaxy Nexus can't access iCloud, so to have things just seemlessly work together, I have to give up the iPad or migrate to the iPhone.It's obviously not the worse problem to have, but it sure is nice for things to work together. Right now, you really have to sign up for one or the other completely, for the best experience. Not to mention being on 2 different platforms means paying for the "same" app twice.
Fx1 - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
When AT says on the internet that iOS STILL FEELS FRESH. You need to take a long hard look at your reporting because it stinks of Apple all over it.anactoraaron - Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - link
I know what you mean. I only had to read what was on the first page to see it. This is what first made me scratch my head..."Today, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch make up a significant portion of Apple’s revenue, and as a result moving the platform along is more of a question of minimizing friction points rather than completely reinventing the OS. "
Why the hell not reinvent the wheel again? Oh right. Apple didn't reinvent it the first time around either. They 'stole' a bunch of ideas and put them together.
steven75 - Tuesday, September 25, 2012 - link
Yep, barely any phones these days look like that original 2007 iPhone.Oh no wait--THEY ALL DO!
Sufo - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
I have to agree. iOS does many things well, however "feeling fresh" is firmly at the bottom of that list. Visually, the experience has barely changed since the first iteration - yet the handsets cost, in essence, £1000 now...robinthakur - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
Well if you come from iOS5 to iOS6 it feels pretty fresh. I would imagine that this is what they meant. The changes are nice improvements in my cursory glance round them so far on iPad3 and IP4S, with Siri having massively improved in the UK. Having demo-ed it this morning in the office, a few people pre-ordered the IP5...I did buy a Samsung Galaxy 3 and kept it for a month, but didn't like the Android OS so went back to iPhone. Android does look nice (though obviously not as smooth) with some good ideas but I just felt that iOS is more integrated and some things just work more reliably. App choice was a big decider as well with a few of my favourite ones missing on Android, but the worst thing was the reception on the phone and the narrow ear-speaker which made me realise the 4S was actually quite good as a phone! If you feel restricted by the capabilities of the iPhone, then Android is probably a good bet, but I just bought it due to screen envy and wanting a new toy which then got bored after I finished playing.
Having gone from a WiMo phone back in 2007 to the first iPhone, and used Blackberrys, Sony P Series and others, I can say with certainty that anactoraaron's statement about "Apple didn't reinvent it the first time around either. They 'stole' a bunch of ideas and put them together. " is utter nonsense and the iPhone OS *was* completely revolutionary. People used to stop in the street and watch me using it, which seems unbelievable now, but true.
The best proof of this is that all phones now (barring perhaps Windows phone) operate and look like an iPhone. I concede though that if you never owned an iPhone/3G and went straight to Androids, perhaps they might even seem derrivative, but they were completely ground breaking when they were introduced.
maximumGPU - Thursday, September 20, 2012 - link
I went from ios 5 to 6, and it certainly doesn't feel novel.We've been having incremental improvements over the past 5 years, and while it was incredible in 2007, ios feels dated now.
It's gonna be windows phone for me now, that's a mobile os that feels "fresh".
Sufo - Friday, September 21, 2012 - link
Yes, windows phones are lovely - I adored my Lumia 800 (as a windows phone and as a physical handset) however lack of apps is a real and legitimate concern. If they can just drag more devs over I can really see windows being _the_ platform for "casual" phone users.Sufo - Friday, September 21, 2012 - link
Gonna have to disagree with you here. Not only does the jump from 5 to 6 not feel significant, it doesn't feel that different from the very first iteration (superficially).Stas - Sunday, September 23, 2012 - link
Loading the front page of AT doesn't give it away? O.o