One of the most exciting features in the upcoming iPhone 4S is called “Siri personal assistant,” a voice recognition application that allows a user to ask common language questions and get real responses without having to issue specific voice commands. This more conversational approach to speech recognition is as friendly as it is powerful.
Siri opens up a whole new world of exciting mobile access for someone that is low vision or blind. Instead of having to manually navigate through a sea of icons using VoiceOver, then typing in your text message to someone, you can simply say, “Text Maurie and tell her I’ll be there at 7 PM.” Siri will create the text and read it back to you. If you have your accessibility settings turned on, Siri will dictate your message back before sending, ensuring it has it right.
Truth be told, this isn’t new technology; Siri was previously available as a separate app, but having it so heavily integrated into the phone and accessible by a simple press of the home button makes this truly accessible by everyone!
Take our poll and check out the video below. You’ll even see a blind user featured at the end of it!
