By now, almost everyone has heard of Sir, the new virtual assistant Apple has included on the iPhone 4S. I’ve been getting to know her for the last 45 minutes or so and I have to say that it’s amazing. Siri was initially the company that developed the artificial intelligence and launched an app with it. Apple snatched them up and integrated Siri into the new version of iOS and made her available only on the iPhone 4S so far. I refer to Siri as a woman because it is a female voice that interacts with you.

The magic of Siri is that she is conceptual. You do not need to say “What is the weather report for zip code xxxxx?” You can simply say, “Siri, will I need an umbrella on Tuesday.” You can say “Siri, can you send Ty an iMessage?” You speak to Siri exactly the way you would to a human personal assistant. She is able to follow the flow of a conversation. As Scott Forstall showed us at the keynote, you can text me with something like “When can we go to lunch?” When that comes in, I can ask Siri, “what is my schedule like for Friday?” If she responds that I am free all day, I can simply tell her to reply. Even though she left the messages app and went to the calendar app, she understands that it was all to get to a response to your request for lunch.