Siri, Do People Still Use You?


Do people still use Siri?  I know I do.  In fact, I use Siri to set reminds, schedule events in my calendar, call people, send texts/iMessages, and even search the web. Then again, I’m also not “most people,” I’m a geek and I love technology.  But what about most people — are they using Siri?

The Research

About a year ago, Parks Associates, a market research firm, performed a survey of 482 iPhone 4S owners, and of those 482 participants, 87 percent of them said they were still using Siri at least once per month.  I think that’s a pretty generous time frame, you can do a lot of things within a one month period.  But of those people, the survey found that most of them use Siri to perform relatively simple functions such as making calls, sending texts, and looking up information.  I understand that Siri isn’t as advanced as Google Now, but it still can be used to do much more than people appear to be using it for in this survey.

Around the same time as that survey, Ars Technica took a poll of their readers (most of whom I think its fair to say are technically savvy), the total number of responses reached 3,323 people.

Right off the bat, you can see the biggest single category was “No, I tried it and didn’t like it,” however, overall, when you add up each of the categories, the Yes category has more votes than the No category.  In fact, according to this poll, just over 50 percent of people use Siri.

Then last month, Ars polled their readers again on the same question (though slightly broader, asking about any iOS device and not just the iPhone 4S), this time 3,072 voted.  The results?  Over 60 percent say they use Siri, but this time the category with the most votes was “Yes, but it could be better.”

Looking at these surveys and polls it seems clear that people do in fact use Siri, that is, until you search Twitter. I did a simple Twitter search for “use Siri” and the results were pretty much the exact opposite of what I had seen so far. In fact, I ran across quite a few posts from people who talked about getting the iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 for Siri and then admitting they never use it.  While others just flat out said they never use Siri or didn’t see the point of it.  Now, don’t get me wrong, there were also Siri supporters in the mix of conversation, but by-in-large, most people on Twitter appeared to admit to not using Siri.

Do People Still Use Siri?

But as for the question, do people use Siri?  I think it’s safe to say people are using Siri, but perhaps many people just don’t know enough about Siri to get the most out of it, and that’s a shame, because Siri has a lot to offer in its current state.  If you don’t believe me, then I highly recommend checking out this excellent write-up on four ways to get things done with Siri.  All of those tips can really improve your productivity and efficiency.

It seems to me that Apple has two things to work on with regard to Siri: 1.) improving Siri’s functionality and 2.) continuing to educate the public about Siri.

By working on both of those things, Apple will be able to keep current Siri users happy and also hopefully get more people using Siri on a regular basis.

What about you? Do you use Siri? If so, how often?