According to a new patent making the rounds today, Siri may be about to take the Mac world by storm in the coming months. It seems that Apple’s been working on a bunch of ways to control your Mac, or other secondary devices, directly from your iPhone through Siri.
Mac, you’re now Siri’s bitch. You had better get used to it.
The patent application points out that (PDF):
What is needed is an electronic device that includes voice user interface for executing voice or oral commands from a user, but where voice recognition is performed by a remote device communicatively coupled to the electronic device, rather than the electronic device itself … One embodiment may include a first electronic device communicatively coupled to a server and to a second electronic device. The second electric device may be a portable electronic device, such as a digital media player, that includes a voice user interface. In one embodiment, the first electronic device may be a wireless combination device, such as a cellular or mobile phone. In another embodiment, the first electronic device may be a laptop or desktop computer capable of connecting to the server … The first electronic device may then transmit the recorded voice command file to the server … The server may transmit the algorithm to the first and second electric devices.
The idea of sending commands to your peripherals and computers directly from your iPhone 4S is an intriguing one that may explain the lack of Siri functionality in the new iPad. Coupling devices together so that they can communicate via a remote server may be easier said than done, but at this point, being able to tell my Apple TV to start playing a movie from my couch through my iPhone 4S is something that has me more than a little interested. This type of model would eliminate the need for including chipsets to decipher speech, and instead the secondary devices would only have to execute the remote commands that a Siri server would send to the device. That makes a lot more sense than including Siri speech recognition capabilities in every single product Apple makes. The iPhone becomes a command central for initiating Siri queries, and the rest of your devices would just do what they’re told.
I like it.
