Would you use Siri if it were to be added to OS X 10.9? That's what we asked Ars readers last week in a poll following renewed rumors about Apple's plans to add Siri to the desktop. Apple had made a job posting about expanding Siri's reach but did not specify it was for iOS—instead, the company listed OS X as one of the key requirements.
This came several months after a rumor from late last year that suggested Apple was indeed adding Siri to OS X 10.9, in addition to replacing Google's mapping data with its own. So we decided to see what our readers thought, and you guys answered. In our first question, we asked whether you use Siri on your iOS device. A surprising 61.7 percent of you said yes, with just over 25 percent of you saying you either like/love it or you have no complaints. (36.4 percent said you use Siri, but it could use some improvements.)
Roughly 12 percent of you said you have never even tried Siri because you have no desire, while almost 20 percent said you'd tried it but didn't like it.
So how might those numbers translate to the desktop? In response to our second poll question, 52 percent of you said you would use Siri or at least give it a shot if it were to appear in a future version of OS X. About 9 percent of you said you were unsure (don't worry, Siri can't bite you), while just over 10 percent of you said you wouldn't use Siri on OS X due to your bad experiences on iOS. Almost a third—about 27.6 percent—said you're just plain not the type to want to speak to your computer. We're sure HAL is crying in his space pod somewhere right now.
No way José
Plenty of you were happy to share your reasons why you would or wouldn't want to use Siri on the desktop, too. "Where I think Siri benefits is creating the ability to do tasks hands free. On a computer you are hands on by default, and that seems to eliminate the benefits Siri offers, while still offering the frustrations that comes along with it," wrote AaronLeeR.
"80 percent of the time, I use Siri for dialing. Telling Siri to 'Call John Doe' is much easier that unlocking the phone, switching to Spotlight, and typing the name," added eighthnote. "Finding restaurants or directions is quite useful as well, simply because finding the app and typing on the iPhone keyboard can be slow. Since my computer has a full keyboard and a million other shortcuts, I don't really see that I would have a use for it."
And of course, no one really wants to be in a room with someone talking to their Mac. "It's bad enough having to share public spaces with people talking to their phones. Having to share my office space with people talking to their computers as well is my worst nightmare!" said scottishwildcat.
But maybe Siri could be used to apply to other things, like Ryoshi's suggestion: "Forget computers, I want something like Siri for my entertainment setup. Kinect seems to be close to what I want, but I don't really want to buy an Xbox 360 for a single peripheral."
Ensomnea may have summed it up best, however, for those who are already dictation fiends: "I prefer Dragon."
Bring us the Siri
But despite some skepticism of Siri's abilities, there were equally as many—if not more—of you who said you'd love to give Siri a shot on your Mac.
"Yep. Why? For setting reminders, calendar events. That is what I find Siri useful for (and Google voice search, now that I'm on a Nexus 4 instead of an iPhone, in which I also used to set alarms). It is much quicker to say 'Remind me to do x at x' than to manually enter something in," wrote Quassin.
Tuxedocat took the idea to creepy levels by suggesting Siri could be listening to your entire environment all the time—but in a totally good way, he swears. "My iMac is in a room where I do several other things. It would be nice if it was always listening and could answer various questions without me going over to the keyboard. I'll say yes."
Another user named spittingangels took AaronLeeR's point to task by noting that a full keyboard doesn't necessarily mean efficiency. "Arguing that Siri would be useless on a desktop because one already has a keyboard is a hollow argument. Siri provides a different interface that abstracts away complex tasks or ones involving multiple steps so that they can be executed in a single query or command."
And zelannii pointed out that even if Siri on OS X can't do anything special like cook you breakfast, it would still be useful for scheduling appointments—especially if it could do so by querying other people's calendars. "I queue up a lot of appointments each day, and it would be very handy to ask Siri to make those appointments for me. 'Get Bob, Jane, me, and the boss into a conference room for one hour ASAP' and Siri could look into the calendar, find free times, and book a conference room through Exchange. That would be AWESOME!"
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