UPDATE: Read our latest "Hey Siri" post posted on 9/18/2014.
Contrary to what we posted a few days ago, Siri in iOS 8 won't always get activated when you say the phrase "Hey Siri." For voice activation to work you will need to have your iDevice plugged in to a power source.
This makes more sense than having Siri activate at all times. Battery life would definitely suffer in that case. Apple seems to have adapted this feature from the jailbreak tweak Activator, which allows users to activate various functions only when the device is plugged in.
Voice activation of Siri will be useful while driving. A lot of people plug in their phones to the 12V power source while in the car. And for the sake of safety it is advisable to keep your hands off your phone while driving. Saying "Hey Siri" will be a lot easier than having to hold down the home button of your iPhone.
I'm guessing Siri will still not launch apps when the car is in motion though. The response you'll get when you try to launch an app will still be, "sorry, to ensure your safety your vehicle won't let me help you with that right now." If anyone is beta testing iOS 8 please let us know if that's the case in the comments below.
Yet another poor attempt by Apple to copy from another manufacturer and platform. Motorola Moto X is always ready to respond to your voice, even whilst phone in standby
ReplyDeleteIndeed, it doesn't work unless the phone is plugged in, which is slightly daunting, given the fact that sometimes you don't want to plug it in anyway, you just want it to response to your vocal commands.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, it's rather silly that they haven't found a way to make it work all the time without wasting too much energy.
What I've found about ios 8 upgrade in general was that it works (on my 5s) slightly worse and it looks much worse (i.e. the bottom panel is just stupid. It's not simple, it's simpleton).