A video shot on the iPhone 4.

Pretty amazing looking. It should also be noted that the still camera can now fire off multiple shots lighting fast. 

The future of Siri and Reminders

Best Nate Smith Ever:

After a long day of being marooned at work, unable to update my iPhone to iOS 5 until I got home I have finally made the upgrade and had a chance to take iOS 5 for a spin. So far I’m lovin’ it more than a McDonald’s commercial.

The notifications center is fantastic and I have a feeling I’m going to be living in there. There are plenty of features to talk about, and all of the other tech blogs are already doing that. 

Instead, I want to talk about the future of iOS and more specifically, the future of Siri and Reminders.

Siri is the voice activated Artificial Intelligence app that Apple acquired last year and baked right into the heart of the new iPhone 4S. Now instead of using Google Maps to find the closest restaurant, you can simply ask your iPhone to find a restaurant near you. You can also ask Siri to send a message to a contact and then dictate the message without having to type a thing. 

Reminders is Apple’s new to-do list and task management app. It’s main feature is location-based reminders. For instance, you can set a reminder to take out the trash when you get home. 

Separately these two applications (technically Siri is no longer an independent app but rather a core element of the iOS) are pretty powerful and useful. But I can see a future where the two will work together.

Take this example: Every day when I leave work, I text my wife to let her know I’m leaving so that she has a rough idea of when I’ll be home. Some days I forget to do this, so it’d be nice to set a reminder for this task.

Currently, I can ask Siri to set a reminder to text my wife when I leave work.

I can also ask Siri to send the message “leaving now” to my wife. 

The next logical step is that I could tell Siri to send the message “leaving now” to my wife, when I leave work. 

I don’t think it’s too far fetched to think that this kind of automation will come to iOS sometime within the next two updates. 

Walt Mossberg on Siri’s accuracy

In my tests, I was able to dictate emails and text messages, even in the car over Bluetooth, without looking at the screen. Accuracy wasn’t perfect—about 20% of the time I had to try twice to get all the words correct. But, in most cases, Siri didn’t make more errors than I do typing on a virtual keyboard.

I think that last line is really good perspective to use when thinking about this, as I am sure there will be a slew of haters who will be looking for any reason to pick apart Apple’s Siri. You/Siri might make some mistakes, but no more than if you were typing the text yourself. And one can only assume that Siri is going to learn to understand you better over time.

Read the rest of Mossberg’s iPhone 4S review HERE.

tuaw:

So awesome.

So digital.

Cocoa Box Notes: Colorful Power: Penultimate 3.2

Really good stuff happening with the new Penultimate update. 

cocoabox:

Penultimate 3.2 is out today, and boy is it a doozy. We’ve taken a huge bunch of time-saving functionality and rolled it all into one power productivity update. Without further ado:

• We have a very cool new scissors tool. Use it to move/cut/copy/paste ink around pages and between pages and…

Daring Fireball: iPhone screens and the Pepsi Challenge

This is so fucking smart that I HAVE to use the word ‘fucking’ to express how smart it is.

For some purposes, bigger is better, and for people who value those purposes, these are better devices. What I believe is that 3.5-inches (or so) is the sweet spot — the best trade-off.

But I do think there’s a Pepsi Challenge type effect going on here. The thing with the Pepsi Challenge was that most people preferred (and prefer today) the taste of Coke over Pepsi, when drinking a full serving. But, when you only take a sip or two of each, people tend to prefer whichever is sweeter, and that was Pepsi. Some people really do prefer Pepsi, of course. But I think there are a bunch of people buying big-ass Android phones after taking just a sip or two in the store.

Facebook for iPad

Money.

Finally.

Get it.

laughingsquid:

At Long Last, Facebook Releases an iPad App

Yes, HAVE SOME. We here at #SODIGITAL are looking forward to trying this out.

Google+ not doing so well.

Do you use Google+?