Siri is about as close as a virtual voice assistant can come to matching a real person. Any Apple user can tell you that Siri has a great personality, is unfailingly polite and can execute a bunch of actions on your iOS device - just be sure to ask politely. You can ask Siri to make phone calls, read out your email and even have conversations about its favourite films. On the other hand, we have to admit that Siri isn't even nearly as good at understanding Indian accents as Google Voice Search is. When we need to chat with Siri, we have to practice our best fake American or British accent.
Android users swear by Google Voice Search, which is great at understanding queries and showing you information you need before you even ask for it, thanks to Google Now. But there are still things that only Siri can do. Windows Phone users love Cortana, but the voice assistant hasn't yet been made available in India.
1. Teach Siri to pronounce names
If Siri isn't pronouncing any contact's name properly, say, "That's not how you pronounce it." Siri will then ask you to pronounce the name. Then it will show you three audio clips, each with a different pronunciation of the name. You can pick the one that's closest to the actual pronunciation. No matter how hard we tried, Siri had trouble pronouncing many Indian names. In that, it's just like a real person from another country who can't pronounce local names. Android users can also do this, but the process is more complicated. You have to go to contacts, then edit the entry, then add a field for phonetic name, before finally having to type in the name phonetically. It's definitely easier to do it Apple's way.
2. Post to Twitter/Facebook
If you've logged in to Facebook (Settings > Facebook) and Twitter (Settings > Twitter), you can ask Siri to post a status update or tweet. Just say, "Post to Facebook" followed by your message or, "Tweet" followed by what you want to post on Twitter.
3. Search recent tweets
Siri has a built-in Twitter search function, which you can use to look for recent tweets or just to display a list of your most recent tweets. Just say, "Search Twitter for" followed by your query. To see your tweets, say, "Show my tweets". Of course, you need to be logged into Twitter (Settings > Twitter) on your device for this to work.
4. Identify, buy songs
Siri now identifies songs via an integration with Shazam. Say, "Which song is this?" or "Name that tune". Siri will listen to the song and try to identify it. This works well with both English and Hindi songs. You can tap the Buy button next to the song or you can ask Siri to buy the song for you. Google has this feature too, but it is not active in India yet.
If any song is playing (or paused) in your music player, you can ask Siri to "Buy that song". It will search the iTunes Store for the song and you can buy it there
5. Weather
Any personal assistant worth its salt will be able to tell you the local temperature and show you a forecast. But you can ask Siri specific questions such as, "Is it cold outside?". It then answers your query and shows the day's forecast. Asking Google if it is cold outside had us listening to the song of the same name, which wasn't a total loss, though not what we had in mind.
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