How Siri Can be Made a Smarter Digital PA

Apple’s superb brain child- ‘Siri’ is a world famous excellent digital personal assistant running successfully on virtually all the iPhones. Although ‘Siri’ helped Apple to conquer the market single-handedly so far, but their one of the greatest rival- ‘Google’ is moving swiftly to catch up Apple in the domain of digital PA. Google’s latest Nexus 5 has shown how Google is getting it right to gain a far more relevant & ultimate digital PA & has also promised that, for Siri, maintaining its dynasty intact won’t be that easy!!!

So, if Siri needs to maintain its position untouched, it has to devote some serious attention to following 10 points which may turn out to be decisive factors in crowning The Best digital PA.

1. Need of offline Mode : - For Siri to work efficiently, internet connection is inevitable!!! There are many tasks which can be performed locally without establishing connection to a server. Connecting to the internet all the time puts an extravagant burden of roaming charges when the user is out of his home town. Hence, Siri need to be able to perform some tasks even without internet connectivity.

Although the offline function would incur an overhead in terms of data to be stored, still considering large memory capacity of iPhones, it won’t be a serious obstacle in its way.

Otherwise, downloadable packets can also be a good option as a user can decide which packet he wants to use in offline mode!!

2. Enhancing voice recognition capability: - Identifying audio input precisely & delivering accordingly being the core idea behind the success of a digital PA, Siri falls short to hit the bull’s eye as it is unable to distinguish between two distinct voices. Apple however, can deal with this drawback by calibrating Siri to individual voice patterns captured by iPhone. Regional dictionaries can also be created with language support & voice recognition improvement.

3. Requires Automatic language Translator:- Siri requires to have automatic translator capability to translate between greater number of languages without both active internet connection& having each phrase to search manually. Additionally, Siri should be able to reduce disjointedness associated with communication in a foreign language.

4. Improvement in the number of languages supported: - Siri’s huge language base still needs to be improved as it supports only very few languages around the world. As Apple devices are sold in more than 120 countries, only 15 countries can dictate to Siri which constitutes mere 12.5%. Improved language support perhaps will help in the creation of regional dictionaries which may bring Siri few inches closer to the masses.

5. Need to be contextual: - Siri needs to trace the footsteps of Google to gain the ability to offer the user with relevant data instantly without manual input which will personify it as a human assistant. Apple has already taken steps to make Siri more contextual but still it is not implemented as quickly as it should be.

6. Settings for each App: - Setting menus are handled excellently by Apple as all of them are accessible from the same spot. Changing notification settings manually without opening app is quite possible. This same menu would allow the user to control the app from where Siri fetches the data, which will help Siri in becoming more personal.

7. Stay ‘Always on’: - Siri misses a crucial feature- ‘Always On’, that allows results to be found without locating a search app manually. As people are becoming more sensitive towards their privacy, Siri needs to take care of it. People can be assured by allowing the feature to be manually enabled (or disabled). A better phrase that mere ‘OK Siri’ is also expected.

8. Make features global:- Availability of all the features globally is a key factor in becoming number one player in the industry. Apple’s few features like dictation is restricted to only 15 countries. Other features are also barely gives cent percent functionality outside US which can be considered as a major problem in Siri. Apple more often fails in making all the key features available globally with immediate effect. Such geographic restrictions in making features available can play major role in Siri’s setback.

9. Availability of more downloadable voices: - Apple can bring in an innovation in the digital PA by introducing celebrity voices which may appeal the masses to use Siri. People may find it quite lucrative if their assistant talks with them in the voice of their favorite celebrity!!!

Crowd sourcing data would at the same time help immensely to create a mammoth contextual database which will cater the most relevant data to the larger range of people.

10. Make Siri to notify users: - Apple’s rival Google offers Notifications as the one of the key feature of its package, which makes it more useful as it provides the updates related to small but vital thing such as live traffic or weather forecasting.

On the similar track, Siri shall also be able to notify its user when required but the ultimate command of allowing those notifications must remain in user’s hand. The user should be able to view notifications only when he desires. Siri shouldn’t disturb him with irrelevant & unnecessary notifications that are not required by the user at the moment. Such ‘Do Not Disturb’ feature must be provided to control the free-flow of notifications.