Roughly half of iPhone 4S owners using Siri are "very satisfied" with the service, according to a newly published survey. Market research firm Parks Associates published its report about Siri users on Tuesday, noting that the most common uses for Apple's "virtual personal assistant" are still pretty standard, like making phone calls or dictating text messages.
According to the survey of 482 users, 87 percent of iPhone 4S owners are still using Siri at least once per month, despite only 55 percent describing themselves as quite satisfied with Siri's functionality. (Nine percent were unsatisfied and the rest fell in between.) Parks Associates Consumer Analytics Director John Barrett said that users tend to like Siri "because it's convenient, easy to use, and helpful for remembering important information (e.g., birthdays)," but according to the firm's own numbers, setting up meetings or reminders is hardly how the majority of owners use Siri.
About one-third of those surveyed said they had never used Siri to perform such an action, and according to the Wall Street Journal (which had access to a more complete version of the report), "[t]hose categories also had some of the lowest percentage of users that did either daily or almost daily."
Instead, users preferred to have Siri perform relatively standard phone functions like making calls and sending texts. Another popular usage for Siri was looking up information. And although Parks Associates seemed excited to ask users about whether they'd want Siri-style voice controls for an Apple-branded TV set, survey respondents weren't quite as enthused. "I would have expected more owners to want Siri for their TV set. These are the folks that rushed out to get the new iPhone 4S," Barrett said, referring to the mere 37 percent who said they would use such a service.
There's a reason for that lack of enthusiasm about Siri on the TV. "People are expressing some reservations about Siri that could impact its popularity on other platforms," Barrett said. "Some said Siri didn’t work well against background noise. Others said it had trouble understanding commands. These problems could be amplified in a noisy living room, where the main TV would be located."
I'm not an iPhone 4S owner so I can't speak from personal experience, but I only know a handful of people who still use Siri after the initial launch in October. So, I thought I'd ask Ars readers: do you still use Siri? And how satisfied are you with its ability to interpret your commands?
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