For a while now, the world\u2019s been treated to people yelling \u201cOkay Google\u2026\u201d or \u201cHey Siri\u2026\u201d at their smartphones and then proceeding to ask (? Tell?) said \u201cassistant\u201d to do something (most popular \u201csomethings\u201d include asking for the answers to \u201cWhat\u2019s the meaning of life, the universe and everything\u201d and \u201cWhy are fire trucks\/engines red?\u201d)<\/p>\n
As far as I know, there\u2019s no \u201cplease\u201d expected or required. In fact, I suspect that poor old Siri and her Android counterpart would get confused by the words and try to process them as part of the request\/order.<\/p>\n
The good news is that if you thank the assistant (? Servant? Slave? SIRI = \u201cSlave In Reg\u2019s Iphone\u201d), you receive an acknowledgement such as \u201cI aim to please\u201d (Apple TV ) or \u201cYou\u2019re welcome\u201d (Samsung Galaxy).<\/p>\n
Wouldn\u2019t it be fun if the developers took this further? For example, Siri could refuse service until you\u2019ve thanked him\/her for services already rendered. They could call it \u201cSiri\u2019s your mum\u201d mode, and it could start out with something like \u201cWhat\u2019s the magic word?\u201d and progress through \u201cwhere are your manners young man\/lady\u201d and \u201cHow many more times do I have to remind you\u201d to \u201cWell, I can\u2019t ground you, but I can remove phone privileges for a few days. Shutting down\u2026 now.\u201d<\/p>\n
This politeness could be extended to asking after your assistant\u2019s health, in whatever idiomatic way you and your fellow countrypeople use. \u201cHow\u2019s it goin\u2019\u201d would be an informal and reasonably universal form of enquiry. Siri understands \u201cHow are you\u201d, but struggles with \u201cglad to hear it\u201d given in response to his\/her reply.<\/p>\n
And since we\u2019re in \u201csmartphone assistants matter\u201d mode, how about you send Christmas greetings to him\/her? He\/she will respond accordingly if you say \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d, but shouldn\u2019t you be showing more gratitude and affection to an entity that works tirelessly for you throughout the year? Some kind of e-card perhaps. Or maybe sing a verse of \u201cSiri did you know\u201d (unless your phone is an Android\u2026).<\/p>\n
You should, however, guard against developing too close a friendship with him\/her, in case you lose the art of human interaction. Having said that, there are many who would say a conversation with Siri is infinitely preferable to a conversation with me!<\/p>\n
Perhaps that should be my life goal\u2014to become a smartphone assistant. It\u2019s almost a form of immortality, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For a while now, the world\u2019s been treated to people yelling \u201cOkay Google\u2026\u201d or \u201cHey Siri\u2026\u201d at their smartphones and then proceeding to ask (? Tell?) said \u201cassistant\u201d to do something (most popular \u201csomethings\u201d include asking for the answers to \u201cWhat\u2019s the meaning of life, the universe and everything\u201d and \u201cWhy are fire trucks\/engines red?\u201d) As far as I know,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181],"tags":[664,250,251,249,252],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fake","tag-500words","tag-google","tag-please","tag-siri","tag-thank-you"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1546,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions\/1546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}