Siri on iPhone 4 - seamless or not?

[slackerinabox]

My wife and I are not big on contracts so buy our phones used off of ebay most of the time (att network). We're between an iPhone 4 and 4s and the only killer app is siri - is the siri port available on the 4 exactly the same thing, or is it an annoying/non user friendly hack?

In other words, can I load it on her phone and not have to worry about providing tech support

 

[slugg]

Slightly off topic, but my girlfriend has a 4S while I have the 4. Siri was cool and funny the first week, and then it lost its novelty pretty quickly. Doesn't seem to be all that useful...

I can't comment on the hack.

 

[slackerinabox]

Slightly off topic, but my girlfriend has a 4S while I have the 4. Siri was cool and funny the first week, and then it lost its novelty pretty quickly. Doesn't seem to be all that useful...

I can't comment on the hack.

Since you have access to both, any reason to drop the extra money on the 4s? I know the camera is excellent but, beyond that? I figure apps that require the extra horsepower are fairly uncommon and of the first person action variety (she plays games like cooking momma and bejeweled).

 

[Pliablemoose]

I work with a ton of people using iPhones, the ones that use/like Siri have a significant driving commute and are pretty happy with it. For me, it's not worth it yet.

Also, score a couple of used AT&T iPhone 4's and put them on Straight Talk for $45/month unlimited voice/text, "unlimited" data, but really ~2-3GB/month or they'll shut you down.

www.straighttalk.com

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Since you have access to both, any reason to drop the extra money on the 4s? I know the camera is excellent but, beyond that? I figure apps that require the extra horsepower are fairly uncommon and of the first person action variety (she plays games like cooking momma and bejeweled).

How long do you plan on keeping this phone? Is the difference in price trivial?

 

[ibex333]

Siri is garbage. It's just another way to get ignorant people to buy the iPhone. Yes, I love my iPhone, it's great, but Siri is nothing but a gimmick/afterthought.

It doesn't recognize what I am saying 40-50% of the time, or doesn't recognize it properly. I was thinking that it's my heavy Russian accent, but I speak English well, and hardly anyone ever said they don't understand me. Plus my American born friends have similar issues.

But what's more relevant is that Siri is simply useless. Most of the time, you will not speak to it to do something on the train or in college or whatnot, because people will look at you like you are weird. So you will go and manually type that reminder or search for something.

Siri was fun the fist couple of days when I asked it about "where can I hide a dead body?" or told it "I wanna have sex", but it all got old very quickly.

 

[kranky]

Now that sending or reading texts while driving is illegal in PA, Siri can be very useful.

"Read me the last text"
"Reply will be there in 20 minutes"

 

[slugg]

Since you have access to both, any reason to drop the extra money on the 4s? I know the camera is excellent but, beyond that? I figure apps that require the extra horsepower are fairly uncommon and of the first person action variety (she plays games like cooking momma and bejeweled).

You pretty much nailed it. The only apps that benefit from the extra horsepower are super intense games, like Rage and so on. Even so, those games scale down well and run just fine on the iPhone 4.

The 4S's camera is definitely better. That's more of a selling point than Siri, if you ask me. The ONLY consistently useful feature of Siri is to have it read you texts as you drive. I'm the type of person to make phone calls... If these features are valuable to you, then the 4S might be worth it.

They're both great phones.

 

[Wonderful Pork]

While Siri is getting a bad rap now, it should only get better with OS upgrades.

Depending on the price difference, I would get the 4S only because it'll be good through
OS 6 and maybe 7. My iP4 is starting to lag a little on 5.0 (not at 5.1 yet), I don't think OS 6 will run very well on it, and Siri + GPS Nav or whatever would be awesome if Apple finally does something with that mapping company they bought.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Siri on iPhone 4 runs pretty slow, and it'll choke all other operations in the phone even if you don't use it much.

I'm not sure why. Probably because it wasn't intended to be on the iPhone 4 hardware to begin with.

 

[slackerinabox]

You pretty much nailed it. The only apps that benefit from the extra horsepower are super intense games, like Rage and so on. Even so, those games scale down well and run just fine on the iPhone 4.

The 4S's camera is definitely better. That's more of a selling point than Siri, if you ask me. The ONLY consistently useful feature of Siri is to have it read you texts as you drive. I'm the type of person to make phone calls... If these features are valuable to you, then the 4S might be worth it.

They're both great phones.

Cool, is the 4's camera god awful, or good enough for facebook/sending pictures of our baby to (her) mom? I mean, she currently has an iPhone 3g and isn't too picky but will she be jealous of her friends iPhone 4s snaps? I was unemployed for a long while and she was the sole bread winner (hence being stuck on a 3g), and now I'm working and want to give her an upgrade,but not a half assed upgrade. Though I also don't want to waste money unnecessarily.

 

[runawayprisoner]

4's camera is good. Compared to 3G's camera, it's a huge step forward. I'm sure she'll be happy with it.

 

[Emulex]

siri works great man. i was in a crowd in SF and said rose pistola and it locked in a second and told me it was around the corner (was staying in this nifty hotel on market by the water). it was a loud area (italian).
the only thing that sucks is directions but that's all ios devices.

with the hacks-far better is siri. and i4siri works and hacking siri onto iphone 4 works if you don't mind changing the keys every 24 hours using the assistant email app

 

[Fingolfin269]

I played around with it the first couple of days I had the phone but haven't touched it since. Seemed to be hit/miss on whether it actually worked or not.

Thinking back, I wonder why reviewers gushed so much about the feature. I can see how the application of this or something similar has future potential but at this point it's nothing special.

*edit*
Just read through the whole thread. Emulex, your post has me wondering if maybe there were just some issues when I initially tried it out. May give it another go this weekend.

 

[slugg]

The 4S's camera is noticeably better, but the 4's is still pretty good for Facebook, eBay, etc. But the 4S takes print-worthy photos!

 

[HillBilly79]

As for Siri, I would agree that it was fun for a few days, joking with friends calling it names. Haven't touched it since the first week or so that I got it. I didn't get the phone for Siri, I upgraded my iPhone 3gs to the 4s. Needless to say I was a happy camper. I love the new camera and the newest iOS. Also, the 4s was a lot faster and smoother running than my 3gs. When I upload pictures to Facebook, I only use my iPhone 4s now, pretty awesome pictures for a cellphone in my opinion.

 

[QuantumPion]

The only time Siri would be useful for me would be in the car. However in the car it has never got my input correct. Not even once. Therefore, it is completely worthless to me.

 

[silverpig]

You can get Evi for the iPhone 4. It also kinda works.