[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGxKhUuZ0Rc[/youtube]
The personal assistant Siri in iPhone 4S was designed to be used with only a few international languages around the globe. Among them are of course English with British and Australian accents, French and German. Although the Scots speak essentially English, Siri cannot recognize their accent and the video clip above demonstrates how problematic the use of the assistant is. The video clip was made after publication of this article in the LA Times newspaper, an article claiming that in Scotland the iPhone 4S terminal is not really that popular precisely because Siri does not work properly.
Since the phone debuted in October, many of the Scots who rushed to buy it have discovered that their new "smart" gadget can't understand them. This is true despite the fact that their phones are set to "English (United Kingdom)" under the "language" setting for Siri, which doesn't seem to take the distinctive Scottish burr into much account. "What's the weather like today?" Darren Lillie said hopefully into his iPhone recently here in the Scottish capital, in a demonstration for an American reporter.
Lillie, 25, is Edinburgh born and bred, and her thick accent shows it. Siri thought for a moment, then decided it best to repeat what she thought she heard.
"What's available in Labor Day?" he asked. Lillie shook his head. "I don't even know what Labor Day is," he said ruefully to the American, who told him.
Problems of this kind are encountered by all those who try to use Siri with an accent that is difficult to understand, but it must be taken into account that Siri is available in beta version at the moment. In the future, Siri will be able to recognize a variety of languages without problems, but if you try to use it now, you may have the problems shown in the clip above.
