Bluetooth

Siri Arse Lee

| Richard

So when I first got my iPhone 4S I wrote:

“I see it really being of use to me when I’m in the car and a text message comes through: Siri can read it out and send a dictated reply. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s done through my Mazda RX-8′s Bluetooth sound system or the iPhone’s loudspeaker.”

Well there’s some good news and there’s some bad news.

The good news is that yes, it works through the car’s Bluetooth sound system, so it mutes any music and reads out the text messages.

The bad news includes:

  • “Uh-kay” being said before most things it does.
  • If you haven’t got a web connection it’ll say it can’t do anything right now, like reading something stored locally.
  • The voice recognition at anything other than walking pace is pretty poor, actually, and I’ve now started simply sending bizarre text messages in reply to people rather than spending hours arguing with Siri when it comes up with gobbledegook instead of what I actually said, thinks that I said “danger” rather than “change it” and claims not to understand danger (big, brave Siri!)  and sometimes even picks a track from my music library to play in an attempt at being ‘helpful’.
  • Won’t perform a web search because I’m in the UK and using proper English.
Close, but no cigar.
Oh and another thing: to be fair to Apple, they claim different sets of services from Siri on their US site to those on their UK site.

The Trouble with Smartphones

| Richard

…is that that composite word is a contradiction in terms. My Nokia N97 is becoming the most annoying thing in my life at the moment. Why?

  • the touchscreen is slow and unresponsive sometimes, which means that it takes twice as long to enter a text message or input data due to errors
  • the touchscreen is usually greasy from my fingers and/or face
  • Nokia’s Bluetooth implementation sucks: it doesn’t work properly in my Mazda RX-8 R3, unlike both my BlackBerry and Sony Ericsson phones
  • reception is rubbish, though this could be down to Vodafone who, let’s not forget, are now selling a gadget to boost your signal (actually a box which appears to change your calls to VOIP)
  • the camera lens is scratched, ironically enough by the lens cover that’s supposed to protect it, so that most shots are compromised and flash shots are truly horrendous

So I’ve decided to replace it with something else. Now, the iPhone is no good as it’s too large and restricted by network (unless you pay top dollar from Expansys) and I’m now no fan of touchscreens anyway. Sony Ericsson have a Google Android device that looks good but is again a touchscreen and Android’s implementation of Bluetooth is again full of fail in terms of voice dialling. No, if only I could have a GPS-equipped version of my favourite current phone, my SE W595.

Well that would appear to be the Sony Ericsson W995 then? Yes … and no. Can someone explain to me what on earth possessed SE to shove a metal stand on it? SRSLY, WTF? I mean, do they reckon that you’re going to get together with friends and family to sit around a tiny mobile phone perched on a coffee table to watch a movie? No, that’s what TVs are for! And in the meantime, that stand is going to be flapping around all over the place – take a look at any demo unit in a phone shop and see what I mean. So it’ll get caught when you put it in or out of your pocket. Being metal, it’ll scratch any other gadgets in the same pocket. Of course, I could just break it off or superglue it down, but that’s not a good way to treat a new phone, surely?