18 
Somehow, through the smog of doubt and tech cynicism, the new iPad managed not to disappoint—likely owing to a retina display that’s more glorious than Athena’s cleavage. But! No Siri! Apple you screwed us again! Actually, no: be glad it’s missing.
Siri on the iPad is an inevitability, just like Siri on pretty much everything Apple will ever sell is an inevitability. It’ll control our music, turn on the World Series, and, of course, find the nearest abortion clinic. It’s integral to Apple’s far-seeing vision of the computer.
So why, if Siri is ready for iPhone 4S primetime, is it absent from the greatest iPad of all time? It’s the fastest mobile device Apple’s ever made, so processing power can’t be the scapegoat. And it’s got the most liquid crystalline eye capacity of any mobile device Apple’s ever made; just think of all the voice-automated ways we could boss Siri around. What gives?
Time’s Matt Peckham has some spot-on speculation: Siri just isn’t good enough for the iPad. Why? Because the iPad is a whole other computing beast that fits into an entirely different part of our life compared to the always-pocketed phone:
With an iPad, by contrast, you might be sitting down at work or home to check email, your social networking sites, or browse the web. Or you might be a kid settling in for a marathon info-dive, the way one might with a book or a game or an encyclopedia. The requirements of a voice recognition app in these “settled” scenarios are much different than when you’re out and about.
He’s right. If we’re going to use Siri on the iPhone, it’ll be for quick conveniences: Where’s the closest X, play album Y, text wife Z. Things we can’t be bothered to do with our fingers. Sloth.
A Siri-enabled iPad, by contrast, could genuinely think with us. It could provide the equivalent of extra arms and an extra brain using an extra computer, working in parallel and assisting us, the way Apple dreamt over two decades ago. Imagine starting a uni paper while Siri looks up a list of Latin American countries that underwent a revolution in the 20th century, sorted by current GDP? Imagine asking Siri to pluck out every photo of your parents at your brother’s wedding, auto-enhance, and resize to something proper for email, all in one utterance.
Siri in its current form is so astoundingly far from being able to do any of this—it can’t even understand Mat Honan’s request for some Coltrane—that an iPad version would be self-parody on Apple’s part. Even in its current iteration, Siri is a beta product at best, a broken gimmick at worst:
That speech recognition is the most obvious example of that beta. Siri’s most common reply to me is that “it didn’t quite get that.” Is this due to my (very slight!) southern accent? Is it because I mumble? I don’t know, but I do know that my Nexus rarely failed to understand me in the ways Siri does.
Worse than its failure to understand my words is its failure to understand my meaning. Siri is often quite dumb. Sure, it will do what you tell it. But it doesn’t interpret or do nuance, even though that is exactly what Apple promises
Siri blows the basics on a phone. Any attempt to cram it into your iPad, ostensibly the gleaming monolith of the post-PC era, would be disastrous. The means to interpret the kind of highly sophisticated tasks we do on computers, not phones, just isn’t there. By a lightyear. So for now, don’t consider this a missing feature. Consider it a missing failure. [Time]
Photo: Kharidehal Abhirama Ashwin/Shutterstock
“If we’re going to use Siri on the iPhone, it’ll be for quick conveniences” Exactly what I thought when everyone else was complaining. It’s pretty simple why they didn’t put it on.
Maybe Apple have decided to retire the crappy gimmick? Had Seri won over the world I think this would be considered a much larger issue.
it’s in beta still, so no, they haven’t retired it. they’ve barely begun with it.
Siri is actually much worse that what it was was at launch. Apple have been very clever with how they manipulated the press over Siri.
At launch, Siri sorta worked, the press reviewed it and combined with the generous “motivational” “gifts”, all gushed praise over the 4S.
At that point, Apple then piled in all the advertising to monetize Siri. Now when you ask Siri stuff, you can bombarded with results for local businesses. Had this been the case when it was launched and reviewed, it would have been bombarded with criticism.
There is some stuff on The Register on how Siri is now MUCH worse than what it was at launch.
Hence why I keep thinking “Why does the 4S exist and why did so many people buy it?”
It doesn’t actually do ANYthing the iPhone 4 doesn’t. Consumers are dumb dumb dumb.
Well, I would buy one not for Siri, but for the knowledge that my iDevice will be supported for an extra year. As somebody on PAY-G, that helps me loads, and saves me more than the £80 I would save from buying a 4. But on contract, you’re totally right.
It’s not that dumb to prefer an iphone 4s to an iphone 4. It’s a fair enough assumption that Apple’s latest phone will be better than an older model. If you are due an upgrade, why not?
‘… and, of course, find the nearest abortion clinic.’
Weird thing to say, I have missed the point?
An early “controversy” regarding siri was that it apparently wouldn’t give you directions to abortion clinics. Can’t remember why this was, recommend the use of Google Search if you are interested enough.
Any word on whether the voice dictate button will be available on iPad2?
Considering we’re already using update 5.1 – I wouldn’t keep your hopes up. It’s a marketing thing.
Bastardos
I like Gizmodo but I dislike how everything is always Ipad this, Apple That. Change the story already, Apple was yesterday the new ipad will sell but less than last time and the next ipad will sell even lest until 5yrs down the road they’ll be back to how they was whilst Steve was gone.
But if it goes as you say it will, but Giz stops covering Apple news, you’ll miss out on all the stories charting the decline and I’m sure none of us want that