Siri: Your Virtual Personal Assistant

Shortly after launch of the Siri application in 2010, Apple acquired the company. A little more than a year later, Apple released a new version of the Siri personal assistant as part of the new iPhone 4S. This version was deeply integrated within iOS -- just long-press the home button or simply hold the phone to your ear and Siri is there, ready to do your bidding. In addition to accessing web services such as Yelp, Yahoo, or Wolfram Alpha, this Siri could also automate most apps that come with the iPhone, including text messaging, email, calendar, clocks, weather, stocks, maps, notes, web search, reminders, music, and more.

Press and feedback from users were quite positive, with people seeming to find Siri both useful on a daily basis as well as compelling in it's style. Users voted with their wallets as well, with the iPhone 4S breaking records for first-day sales. Siri also helped Apple drive quarterly revenues and profits to a level never before seen by a technology company. Siri's technical achievements were recognized at the 2011 Crunchies Awards.

• Official Siri video.   [YouTube]
• Official iPhone 4S video.   [YouTube]
• Siri website at Apple  [HTML]
• NYT's David Pogue: New iPhone Conceals Sheer Magic   [NYT]
• Jon Gruber on Siri and iPhone 4S   [BLOG]
• Siri Parody on Jay Leno's the Tonight Show.   [NBC.COM]
• Siri Parody on the Ellen Degeneres Show.   [YouTube]
• One of the many thousands of Siri fan videos   [YouTube]
• Siri on primetime comedy show The Big Bang Theory  [YouTube]
• Siri wins Best Technical Achievement award at Crunchies  [UStreamTV]
• NPR: Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me -- Siri Humor by Peter Sagal  [YouTube]
• Siri on the Today Show  [Today Show]
• Siri Warms up the Crowd at WWDC 2012  [YouTube]
• Siri Clips (by Tom Gruber)  [.MOV]