Siri – The End of the Keyboard?

Courtesy of Gizmodo

We all know Siri. That clever, sexy-voiced (female), virtual assistant existing in the iPhone 4S. We’ve seen the things it can do. It understands you, it can set-up your calendar entries and appointments, it answers your questions, it helps you send a message without touching or looking, it’s hard-working, polite and keeps you away from prison by not hooking you up with anything illegal. But one feature that really stands out for me is it’s sophisticated voice recognition capabilities that allows you to input text just by simply talking to it. Gone are the days when we have to talk like a robotic idiot when giving commands to our devices.

Even in it’s early stages, Siri is already a very capable technology. It understands almost everything you say and Apple promises that Siri will get better over time. Now let’s imagine Siri in her ideal state and let’s say you need to send an e-mail or make an important note. You don’t open a laptop, you speak to Siri and she does it without you requiring to open your laptop. For a blogger like me, that would prove REALLY useful as we usually think or speak faster than type. If a technology such as Siri can do it perfectly, why would I put my hands on a big-ass keyboard?

The problem with keyboards is that it doesn’t get better over time. It has already become smaller and virtual but the typing experience didn’t get better. Actually it became worse as we are more adept in using big physical keyboards. The keyboard you’re using now has become mobile, but does it allow room for innovation? And by innovation meaning improving our experience with it. So as we use more technology like Siri in the future, which allows you to input information with virtually zero physical interaction, let me ask you again, do you still need a keyboard? Let’s play with another favorite tool. With the use of technology that recognizes hand gestures (e.g. iPad, Xbox) to interact with software, what will happen to the mouse?

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