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Siri’s the main selling point of the iPhone 4S — thanks to kooky quirky Zooey — but here in the UK it’s limited to just telling you how busy your day is and what the weather’s like outside. That’s all about to change with iOS 6, however, which puts loads more local information at the artificial assistant’s disposal.
Thanks to an anonymous UK-based tipster, we’ve been able to take a look at some screenshots of the upgraded Siri in action, and it’s definitely a lot more capable than it is at the moment. Bear in mind it’s only just been released in beta, so by the time it’s officially released in October, some of the bugs should have been ironed out.
1. “Is there a pub nearby?”
First things first. Thanks to Yelp integration, Siri can now direct you to the nearest boozer. If you ask it whether there’s a pub nearby, you will be given a number of options, and you can tap on one for more information and navigation details.
Result: WIN
2. “Where is the nearest petrol station?”
Okay, so it looks like our tipster wasn’t in luck when it came to petrol stations — the nearest one was incorrectly listed as 52 miles away — but at least Siri knows what you mean and makes the effort to help you fill up. Not that this will help when you’re running on empty — definitely an area for Yelp to work on.
Result: FAIL
3. “I’m hungry”
If you’re in an unfamiliar area and looking for somewhere to eat, Siri will be able to point you in the direction of the nearest restaurant. Thanks to Yelp, you can also see a user-generated star rating for each listing as well.
Result: WIN
4. “What’s on at the cinema today?”
At the keynote yesterday, Siri was able to find AMC cinema listings in the US, but it doesn’t look as though a deal’s been struck to bring that feature to the UK just yet. Siri will be able to fire up apps though — the excellent iOS Flixster app, for example, has access to UK cinema locations and times, so you could ask Siri to fire that up for you.
Result: FAIL
5. “What’s the traffic like?”
Siri takes you straight to Maps and zooms in on your location. Thanks to the new Maps app in iOS 6, you will be able to see traffic information on the roads around you.
Result: WIN
6. “Turn Do Not Disturb mode on”
One of the other new features in iOS 6 is ‘Do Not Disturb‘ mode, which stops people from calling you in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, it looks like you’ll have to dive into Settings to set it up, as Siri hasn’t made friends with it yet.
Result: FAIL
7. “Can you direct me home?”
If you have your home address stored in Contacts, Siri will take that information and direct you home from wherever you happen to be, using the new Maps app.
Result: WIN
8. “What was the last Manchester United score?”
Sports fans are going to love this — Siri can now tell you about previous football results and upcoming matches too. It will support the Premier League as well as some European leagues such as Spain’s La Liga.
Result: WIN
9. “Are there any Euro 2012 games on tonight?”
It doesn’t look like Siri is quite clever enough to handle other sporting requests. A query about Euro 2012 redirected our tipster to the browser so Google could handle the request instead.
Result: FAIL
10. “What’s the weather like?”
You can teach an old dog new tricks, but it hasn’t forgotten the first one it learned. Yes, you can still ask Siri what the weather is like as you wrestle your umbrella back into shape to tackle our typically wonderful summer…
Result: WIN
Score: 6/10. We’d expect the Do Not Disturb function to be fixed before launch, and the Euro 2012 question was perhaps unrealistic, but the other two queries were pretty easy. Better local information will be needed if Siri’s to live up to its Deschanel-pleasing billing. Overall though, a great improvement. For more on iOS 6 watch our video below.
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