Why Should I Hire A Personal Assistant If I Have Siri On My iPhone

Having a personal assistant for a busy people is a must, even if you are not a CEO or a business owner. When it comes to many tasks you need to work on, you may also need one, otherwise, you may miss many deadlines.

If you are a multitasking person like me and cannot manage your time and schedule well, it can affect your health as well. Sometimes, you maybe won’t even realize that you haven’t taken enough water. Skipping meals isn’t a new thing. Sending birthday wishes to your family, colleagues, and friends is something you cannot forget, otherwise they will think you don’t care about them. I wish I could have my own personal assistant to help me with those things.

Hey, wait the minute! I’m holding the best things for that. iPhone is one of the best smartphones in the world and Siri is a built-in digital assistant. She can help you as your personal assistant.

Siri didn’t came to iPhone for nothing

Siri is the first virtual personal assistant for mobile devices. It first came in 2010 as an iPhone app created by a 24-person startup, before Apple acquired it. They reportedly bought Siri for more than $150 millions. In October 2011, Apple officially introduced Siri as an iPhone 4S feature. Siri was integrated to iPhone for the first time.

When Tom Gruder, the co-founder of Siri demonstrated it for the first time, he asked the app to find him a romantic Italian restaurant near his office. She gave an answer by collecting facts from Citysearch, Gayot, Yelp, Yahoo! Local, AllMenus.com, Google Maps, BooRah, and OpenTable.

After the acquisition, Apple has been improving Siri’s skills and abilities. It was only available in one language. Now, it is available in 42 languages and can be used on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Mac.

Apple bought this virtual assistant app to complement their iPhone as a true smartphone. You can use Siri for creating schedules, checking the weather, get a taxi, calendar events, dinner reservation, playing your favorite music, etc. Now, it’s integrated with Apple automation platform as well, called HomeKit.

From personal secretary to house manager

Siri can do a lot of things, from creating reminders, reply to messages while you are driving a car or doing exercise, adjusting your home temperature. Now, you can access Siri from iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and even Mac.

Here what Siri can do as your personal secretary:

• Siri can read you a new message or email while you are walking, eating, exercising, or driving a car. You can also ask her to send the reply message without opening your iPhone. You can just simply say: “reply” or “send a message to my boss”.
• She can book you a table for dinner in the restaurant. “Find me the nearest Chinese restaurant”, or “Make a reservation at (restaurant name) for 6 p.m.”
• She can find hotels and flights and check your booking status. You can say: “check the flight status of (airline and flight number).
• You can ask Siri to remind you for an important appointment and creating a new schedule.
• Also, you can ask her for the navigation, for instance, “take me home”, “where is (the street name)?”, “where is the nearest shopping center?”, etc. Siri will show you on a map. Moreover, you can ask here about the traffic: “what’s the traffic like on the way home?”.
• In case you are traveling abroad and you don’t know what place you are standing on, Siri can tell you with ease.
• She can request a taxi or Uber for you.
• Siri can change the iPhone setting for you, like turn on/oBluetoothoth, WiFi, Do Not Disturb feature, etc.
• Sometimes, we need to do the conversion, whether that is related to currency or math. You can simply access Siri and her: “convert dollar to euro”, etc.

Here what Siri can do as your home assistant:

• Imagine that you have a hard day at the office and you feel so tired. All you want to do once you arrive at home, sit on your couch, and control everything with less effort. You can set or adjust the brightness of the light as you want, including temperature. You can also play your favorite music while you are laying down on the couch. Isn’t it awesome?

• Interestingly, you can ask Siri to do all those things from turn on the light to help you make coffee. Recently, Tim Cook explained how Siri improves his life. He uses Apple’s virtual assistant to adjust the lighting, lock the doors, and else. She even knows the daily routine of Cook, and sets everything at home based on his habits.

“I’m personally using HomeKit accessories in the Home app to integrate iOS into my home routine,” Cook told Wall Street analysts (and anybody else who braved the business-saturated call). “Now, when I say ‘Good Morning’ to Siri, my house lights come on and my coffee starts brewing. When I go to the living room to relax in the evening, I use Siri to adjust the lighting and turn on the fireplace. And when I leave the house, a simple tap of my iPhone turns the lights off, adjusts the thermostat down, and locks the doors. When I return to my house in the evening as I’m near my home, the house prepares itself for my arrival automatically by using a simple geofence.”

Should I Hire A Personal Assistant?

Siri is great, but she isn’t perfect. Yes, she’s helpful of course, but in certain ways, she failed. For instance, when it comes to travel arrangement, a real human assistant is better. When you ask her to find you a nice hotel around your budget, she will give you a list of hotels instead. I have to open the suggestion link and check it by myself. I can do it better and faster actually. I can open my travel app and check it by myself. Moreover, Siri cannot book you a hotel and flight. So, in this point, the real human personal assistant is better. Here is the list of Siri’s disadvantages:

Certain features aren’t available in all countries

Many iPhone users must be disappointed with it because some of its important features are only available in the certain country. For example, Siri sport can only be found in limited countries. If you live in the U.S, you can use all of its features. If you live in other countries, you can check its feature availability, here.

Siri failed to understand some questions

The other lack of Siri is the way she answers some questions. Google Assistant can give better answers. For example, when asking her about the definition of something, she will take us to Wikipedia page or Google search. While Google assistant can answer it for you.

Apple Is Working On “Enhanced Siri”

Since it’s acquired, Siri kept getting improvements, year by year. This year, it seems that Apple will give her a major upgrade. According to DigiTime, Apple is working on the enhanced version of Siri. Last year, the company acquired an Australia-based learning machine startup, called Turi. The report said the machine will allow Apple to “further strengthen the functionality, as well as the market share” of Siri. I think this year will be a tough year for smartphone vendors. They will not only compete in smartphone technology but also AI. Siri has to face her biggest rivals Google Assistant, Cortana, Alexa, and more. Furthermore, the rumors suggest Samsung will also launch their new AI assistant, Bixby, which is going to be introduced through Galaxy S8.

I Will Consider Siri As My Personal Assistant If…

Siri did such a great things in certain areas. As I explained before, Siri cannot meet my needs, especially in terms of booking hotels and flight. In my country, she cannot even book me a table for dinner the n restaurant because the feature isn’t available. But, I still may consider Siri, especially after I heard the rumor of the “enhanced Siri”. I don’t know yet what will it look like, but I hope it will be just as I imagined.

I wish she would be able to have an interactive conversation more naturally. Thus, she will know my needs well.

For example, when I ask: “book me a hotel in Singapore”.

She will first ask: “What room type do you prefer?” or “what is your budget?”

In the end, before the final book, I expect she will confirm by giving me the detail information about the hotel or room.

“I’m going to book you a deluxe room with queen bed type in xxx hotel for 2 nights. The total amount you have to pay is $100. Do you agree?”.

The similar things can be done in booking a flight ticket. I think it would be fabulous if Apple can do that with Siri.

Read also: Line Is Going To Have Digital Assistant Called Clova