Apple has often been called, for better and sometimes for worse, the luxury automobile of personal computers. Now it seems that metaphor has influenced reality as Mercedes-Benz has announced plans to integrate the iPhone and Siri's voice control functions into its new A-Class vehicle, according to a PSFK report.

The new A-Class vehicle will seamlessly merge iPhone 4S functions into the car's in-vehicle display via Daimler's Digital DriveStyle App and COMAND Online multimedia system. While docked in the car, the iPhone 4S will receive an automatic charge and offer access to the device's content as well as social networking applications, including Facebook and Twitter.

But the biggest win here for Apple is the fact that Mercedes-Benz is the first carmaker to offer Siri as a part of its voice control systems. Using Siri, drivers will be able to send SMS text messages and emails while traveling, check location and weather, schedule appointments on-the-go, as well as select from the full menu of music available on their iPhone 4S. This hands-free, mobile control of a device that many consider their primary computer gives us our first real glimpse at what traveling with a virtual assistant feels like.

This latest news may also explain why late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs seemed so closely tied to his famous license plate-free Mercedes-Benz – he may have been testing this integration out personally for the last couple years. According to reports, Jobs purchased a new Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG about every six months to avoid getting plates, but the reasoning behind sticking with one car particular brand of vehicle, year in, year out, perhaps had just as much to do with research and development as it had to do with personal taste.

Although the first rollout of this iPhone 4S pairing is limited to the brand's A-Class vehicles, Mercedes-Benz plans to introduce the Apple integration in the B-, C- and E-Class vehicles starting this fall.

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Ever since Siri was introduced on the iPhone 4S along with iOS 5 back in October, coders and developers have been looking to manipulate it in a variety of ways – with some interesting results.

That interest transcended greatly with the release of the iOS 5.0.1 untethered jailbreak in December, and perhaps more so the following month when the A5 Absinthe jailbreak was unveiled for the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2.

Up until now, the best way to install Siri on an unsupported device has been Spire. Released in December, it’s pretty straightforward to set up, requiring users to connect to a proxy server in order for the various commands to be answered by Apple’s pocket slave.

It seemed inevitable that there would be more in the way of Siri alternatives, though, and a Vietnamese dev team has produced a new, and apparently much more advanced iteration, which operates under the effeminate pseudonym of Sara. This free voice recognition utility takes it a little further than merely setting reminders or driving users crazy with nonsensical conversation, and appears to be much more versatile – allowing users to train it to accept new commands.

It’s described by its creators as having an "open" brain, allowing those in the know to create plug-ins for special commands fairly simply. With Cydia home to so many disciples, we very much doubt there will be a shortage of said plug-ins once Sara is adopted by the masses.

It's hard to argue that there's a better virtual assistant for the iPhone when you've got Siri, because Apple can create app that is completely integrated with iOS. That said, if you don't have Siri there are plenty of great options that may even be better some day. Here's a look at why Siri's great but plenty of other excellent alternatives as well.

This is just a quick overview of Siri's capabilities. For more information, visit Apple's official page, read our Siri overview, and learn the various things you can say.

Siri primarily excels in two ways: it's fully integrated with your iPhone so it can do almost anything and you don't need to have the app open for its complete functionality. Both of these things are advantages that Apple has over the competition because it can integrate its apps much more closely with the operating system than any third party will ever be able to do. That said, Siri is also great because it can do more than most third-party apps can do anyway. It's capable of looking up information, making complex calculations (via Wolfram Alpha), getting driving directions, making calls and texts, adding appointments to your calendar, and much more. It can even tell you a joke. Siri is so thorough that even if you combine every third party app listed in the competition section below, they still wouldn't have all the functionality Siri can provide. That said, Siri isn't perfect and some of the other apps definitely have their advantages. It pretty much comes down to this: If you have Siri, it's most likely your best choice in virtual assistants. If you don't, there are some really great alternatives.

Siri has several downsides. First, it only (currently) works on an iPhone 4S (although there's a complicated workaround for jailbroken devices). Second, it doesn't work hands-free (although there's a jailbreak workaround for that, plus a non-jailbreak trick you can use to avoid pushing the home button). Perhaps most importantly, Siri sometimes has some issues with accuracy. This should be expected with any voice recognition software, but it seems to misunderstand certain words more so than some of the competition listed below. That said, Siri's level of accuracy is still very good, but if you're having trouble getting it to understand you then you might want to see how another app fares. Finally, although Siri is incredibly well-integrated into iOS, there is still more it could do—and jailbreak hacks make these things possible. For example, launching apps,changing settings, and other custom commands aren't available by default, but you can definitely add them if you're jailbroken.

Vokul ($3) is a virtual assistant geared more towards using your phone safely while you drive. While it's great for that, there's no reason you can't use it as an assistant in other situations as well. It can send email, texts, make calls, and play your music. What it can't do, at the moment, is get you driving directions or search the web for information. That said, it has, by far, the most accurate voice recognition of any app I've tested so far. Read more about Vokul here.

Evi ($1) fills in the functionality that Vokul doesn't have. While it can't (yet) send emails or texts or do much in the way of controlling your phone, it can look up just about any information you need online—and you can use your voice or search manually. For example, if you wanted to know what time it is in Beijing or when Thanksgiving is in 2016, Evi can find out for you. You can ask it just about anything. If it can't find the answer, it'll try to provide you with relevant information. For example, it wasn't sure if it was a leap year this year so it pointed me to the leap year page on Wikipedia.

Vlingo (Free), in theory, is a perfect option. It can get directions, send emails, compose text messages, update Facebook and Twitter, search the web, and make phone calls—all using the power of your voice. In my tests, however, it had a very hard time finding accurate results. This hasn't been the case with other apps, so I have to assume the voice recognition just isn't as good. That said, Vlingo is free and a lot of people use it, so there's certainly no harm in trying to see if it works well for you. If it does, it's pretty much the best deal on virtual assistants you'll find in the iTunes App Store.

Voice Actions ($5) is an app you should probably avoid. Not only is it more expensive than your other options, but it seems to get confused by most commands. It's supposed to be capable of finding all sorts of information, setting alarms, voice dialing contants, and much more, but even when it understood the names I gave it—both simple and complex—it wasn't sure what to do with them. I'd say "call Whitson Gordon" and it would get the name right, but search for it rather than recognize I wanted to make a phone call. While Voice Actions can supposedly do quite a bit, I couldn't get it to do all that much. Your mileage may vary, but considering it's the most expensive option you've got it's hard to recommend giving it a try when you've got a free app that does the same stuff and two cheaper paid apps that work very well.

I remember watching an episode of The Outer Limits about seven years ago, and although a purely fictional televisions series, this particular episode focused around the creation of humanoid life forms using what they called nanobot technology aimed to create intricate Androids in the form of humans. The whole premise of the show was that these robots could then be used to carry out the more menial tasks associated with everyday life.

Typing with your hands is so retro.

Own an iPhone 4S and Mac computer? Check out a new hands-free typing app called Air Dictate.

There are no public APIs for using the Siri voice-activated assistant for dictation, so developer Avatron found a way to control Siri and convert speech into text. The text then transfers to the corresponding Mac (with OS X 10.6.8 or higher) running the Air Dictate Receiver app.

This means you can turn your phone into a speech recognition microphone and input text into Mail, Word, Pages, and whatever other app loves text.

While many speech-recognition programs exist for Mac computers, I suppose it is somewhat splendid to use a phone instead of a conventional microphone or headset. Would you really use your phone to type often, though?

Source - [ news.cnet.com ]

From my perspective as a psychiatrist, Siri, the iPhone’s virtual assistant, could prove more toxic psychologically than violent video games or some street drugs.

For those who haven’t yet heard of Siri, “she” is the virtual assistant programmed by Apple into the new iPhone 4s. She recognizes many words and requests (though often imperfectly) and is, therefore, able to send emails, put reminders into “her” owner’s schedule, and generate GPS directions. 

Just tell her, “Siri, I want pizza,” and Siri says, in a female voice, “I’m checking your current location . . . I found 13 pizza restaurants. Eight of them are fairly close to you.” She then lists the restaurants on the iPhone screen so you can choose one. With a polite tone, she will apologize if she doesn’t understand your voice, “Ok, I give up . . . could you try it again?”

Siri is even funny. Tell her you love her, and she replies, “All you need is love. And your iPhone.” Or, “You are the wind beneath my wings.”
Funny, right? Well, not really—not when you stop to consider that you have just been coaxed to interact with a virtual entity. Perhaps without thinking about it, you have tacitly agreed to use a proper name to refer to a computer program, to agree the computer program has a gender, to laugh at “her” quips and to rely on her to guide you to places to eat or to give you a reminder about when to call home.

Now, many people—including some psychiatrists—would say that this is all entirely harmless. But I believe that personifying machines and interacting with them as quasi-beings actually dumbs down our interpersonal skills and encourages us to treat other people like machines. Ultimately, it diminishes our ability to empathize with one another, because we’ve been chatting up a non-existent person and can get used to considering real people as essentially non-existent, too.

To the extent that people become “attached” to Siri and “rely” on Siri and think Siri is “funny,” they are just a tiny, tiny bit less likely to value a friend’s responsiveness, or a colleague’s help or even to appreciate the nuances in tone of voice that real humans use to convey emotion and communicate with one another.

I have laughed at Siri. I have gotten angry with Siri and called her names. I have told my kids, when Siri helped me get to a frozen yogurt joint I couldn’t find, “Siri is amazing.” And, just now, in this very paragraph, I didn’t hesitate to refer to a computer program by name and use the adjective, “her.” Because there isn’t any other way to speak of this interactive program. Its existence requires that we treat it as if almost alive. And that means that people who are actually alive and give us directions or answer our questions or joke with us are cross-contaminated with the technoviral quality of machines. They are "Sirized," which means they are downsized in their humanity.

To the small extent that we say we “love” Siri or use “her” name or rely on her to get us out of a jam (even if it is just being lost), we cut ourselves free from the interpersonal tethers that bind us, one to another, and which act as insulation against acting toward one another in dehumanizing ways.

So, next time you see a group of kids beat another kid and post the video on YouTube, or marvel at how someone could ruin her life by humiliating herself on Facebook or find yourself at a loss to remember the name of a restaurant or how to drive to that park you’ve been to a half-dozen times, you can thank the likes of Siri.

That’s why I told Siri just now, “Siri, I hate you.” She seemed irritated. She said, “Noted.” But she’ll still give me directions and send my emails. So, it doesn’t really matter that I told her that. That’s the point.

Scream into the void enough, and your words and emotions will eventually be no better than a machine’s.