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Because of Apple’s partnership with search comparison engine Wolfram Alpha, Siri now has the ability to search the entire Best Buy catalog, a feature added to Wolfram Alpha today.
Best Buy has public APIs that have allowed Wolfram Alpha to leverage the data from more than 35,000 products that Best Buy sells. Because Wolfram Alpha was built on a natural-language interface, as Siri is, the ability to get accurate and informative results using voice recognition is that much more impressive.
Siri, using Wolfram Alpha’s access to Best Buy’s APIs, has access to pricing information, tech specs, product images, and model numbers for any product Best Buy carries. Reports around the Internet show Siri accessing the Best Buy catalog, though my own tests do not yet yield results.
This could be related to the tweaked iOS 5.0.1, released yesterday, that added decrypted RAM disks, which I do not have installed currently. My inability to search Best Buy on my iPhone 4S could also be related to distribution of that capability on the Siri servers.
Certainly the future of Siri is beginning to be seen. As more and more companies follow Best Buy’s lead and make their data accessible to Apple, Wolfram Alpha, Yelp, and other Apple partners, Siri becomes more and more valuable as a search engine and operating system.
What data do you think Siri could use to make your life easier? Let me know your opinions in the comments!
