My wife’s phone doesn’t understand me

A couple of months ago my wife upgraded her iPhone from a 3GS to a 4S. The three really noticeable differences are the flat, slab-like design, the detail and colour of the screen and, of course, Siri. I suspect that the S after the 4 is for Siri and not for speed, sport or snobbery.

So of course we’ve been doing what ever one with access to Siri does – see if it does what it claims. I say it because in the UK Siri is a man who sounds like a Radio 2 announcer. (For non-UK people, Radio 2 is a BBC Radio service aimed at those who listened to pop music stations 20 years ago and haven’t migrated to talk shows or culture.) Siri here is not the subservient female that caused such a rumpus in the US when she first came out, as it were. It would be very interesting to know why they made that decision.

First to try Siri out are, of course, the kids. Younger daughter and her friends found endless amusement in trying to get him to say things and had already heard most of the Easter eggs so they tried all those too. And Siri understood about half of it.

But for me, speaking normal, Siri just simply did not understand. In fact the results were positively comical. It was very frustrating, frankly, and if I wasn’t in the industry I’d have given up. I may be Scottish but I have very little accent, certainly nothing that should have caused problems.

Some perseverance and some research enabled me to replicate some of the known forms successfully. I was able to teach Siri that I was the husband and was able to call myself by saying “call my husband” into my wife’s phone. And I was able to add an appointment to the calendar. Pronouncing Cautiously In Carefully Composed Sentences Worked Quite Well.

However when it came to more general queries, nada. The recognition of generic terms was significantly worse than Google Voice Search, for example.  Apple have done their usual thing of creating a protected environment where things they consider you likely to say work reasonably well but outside of that you’re on your own. At least Siri doesn’t say that generic queries violent your terms and conditions.

The Right Channel

Not been posting here for the last couple of months. Can you work out what happened then? Google+ of course!

It's interesting to match our communications needs to the right channel. We have an overwhelming choice when it comes to how to reach our fellow humans:

• Talk to someone
• Telephone
• Text
• Email
• IM
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Google+
• And others

Different mechanisms have different priorities and groups. We fit the urgency, size, privacy, interactivity, audience and  importance of our message to the right channel. 

Google+ seems like the right format and speed for quick comments on technical things. Twitter is great for thought bites, many of which turn out to be either complaints or discoveries. Facebook is about family and friends.

This means that we don't have a hierarchy of channels, but a graph. And I don't see there being winners or losers. I don't mean the deluge of identical startups rushing to do something social that's been tried before and doesn't work (eg finding nearby contacts or uploading and sharing photos), I mean the core backbone services. They are probably fixed for a while anyway.

Pasta and PayPal

I normally try and avoid chain eateries, but I made an exception last night to check out the new mobile PayPal payment mechanism at Pizza Express. The Richmond Pizza Express is an interesting fitout in huge space at ground level in an curious stripey building that looks like it was originally built in the 1920s. This design conceit was echoed in the china as in this saucer.

For those unfamiliar with this chain, the quality of the food is a definite step up from the internationals and the decor is usually quirky and different at each location. This one has crazy round booths and black and white Italian movies projected in loops on the end walls.

Payment works via an iPhone app only at the moment, developed by 2ergo. I'm not keen on the user experience of the app in general, but the payment mechanism is very cool indeed. It is deeply integrated into the point of sale system. When you get your bill it has a long number at the bottom. You type this into the app and up comes your bill - really quickly. You add your tip and authenticate with PayPal, agree the sum to be paid, and that's it. You may now leave the restaurant, the app says.

I didn't as it struck me that I'd have half the staff running after me if I did so. As it happened I had a surprised waitress appear saying that the payment had popped up at her when she started entering someone else's order.  All very smooth and efficient. And astoundingly fast.

What was striking was the huge step difference in user experience from credit cards and banking. This is user-centric and design-conscious payment, not something that comes at you in the battle-hardened-we-don't-trust-you way of conventional systems.  No clunky hardware interfaces. No bits of paper. All electronic and all filed away conveniently. And by the way, did I mention that it was fast?

One thing the app didn't let me do was request a change of movie. My end of the restaurant was projecting the incredibly sad Ladri di Bicilette, a grim tale of poverty in post-war Rome totally unsuited to the cheery venue and the conspicuous consumption of good food.

Incomprehensibility of roaming data

This comes to you from a windowless meeting room in the middle of a US office block, just like all the other windowless meeting rooms. Outside it could be snowing or sunshine, as it happens it's bright sunshine with a slight breeze.

Since arriving here last night I've had a variety of SMS messages from Vodafone on my various devices. All of them slightly different and none of them readily comprehensible. My favourite is this:

From Vodafone: To let you know it's nearly midnight in the UK. If you do need to carry on using data after midnight, you'll be charged £12.75 per 25MB.


I've read this several times and I think they are saying that the current 25MB batch that I've been using isn't finished but is going to be reset because it's midnight in another timezone and that I've to buy another batch to keep using the data.

Surely at that inflated price they could afford a copy writer who could craft better messages?

Underground Movement

I was in Paris over the weekend and was rather startled when I received a call while I was well underground. I already knew that the Metro has been fitted with 3G repeaters, but it hadn't really sunk in. The sound quality was better than in many British streets.

While no one looked at me in an aggrieved manner, I didn't feel comfortable taking. Nor apparently did the only other person who took a call on the Metro during the weekend. And I never saw anyone originate a call.  What I did see was loads of people staring at their phones, running apps, reading websites and, presumably, text messages.

Is there an intrinsic sense of privacy that stops us having loud, one-sided conversations in crowded public places? I hope so. The young woman relaying her love life to her friend so loudly that everyone in the carriage could hear, back in London, could do with learning that lesson. When they eventually got off the train there was a collective sigh of relief. Perhaps the same applies to mobile calls, or maybe we just haven't got used to the idea yet.

Three things iPhones do better

Prior to iOS 4 I had a strong preference for Android. 4.x has narrowed that to a slight preference, mainly because folders are really neat. But there are three things where iOS is slicker than Android:

• Reconnecting to wifi
• Automatically splitting words when you don't tap the space properly
• Popping up the accented character box

All small things, but they can be the niggliest. 

One area where they are just as niggly as each other is the wilful way they select just the wrong wifi signal. This, of course, only applies if you have more than one available, but that is the position in which I find myself quite often. And both phones always pick the one I don't want. Systematically. I guess they are just proving they are computers under the cute hardware.

Rise of Design

I installed Color today, yet another photo sharing app this time with the twist of being hyperlocal. The idea is (I think) that people at an event, party or a playdate (that's when you invite your kids' friends or friend's kids over to play for Europeans) and you can bang away with photos and they are shared with all the other sad people busy with their phones rather than talking.

Ignoring whether that is interesting or not, the app is gorgeous. Really nicely designed with crisp features and educated aesthetics. It is also fabulously easy to get started with no long painful sign up or banging out to another authorization site.

I'm hoping this signals a wave of raised awareness of design as there are still a lot of horrible-looking apps out there.