Dear Aunt TUAW: Does Siri work well in the office?

The reminder feature is fast and wonderful. It's shaping up to be my #1 use of Siri.

I think anyone who says Siri is awesome is just being a fanboy. I love Apple products, but this is one that should not have left the corporate office. I'm sorry, but siri is just not ready for prime time. I find it extremely frustrating that after attempting to use it for 3 weeks, it still cannot understand what I'm saying. I have to enunciate my words carefully. Granted, I am from the south and have a bit of an accent, but I would think Siri could catch on after a while. Maybe they'll get Siri to play better in the future. For now, I wouldn't get the iPhone 4S just for siri.

You can work around the Exchange/Relationships issue by creating a 'native' or iCloud contact with the same name as your Exchange contact, and configure Siri to use that as "you". Then it can add the correct fields to represent relationships, and the Unified view combines the two contacts into one dynamically.

You can get around the Exchange contacts relationship limitation. Just turn on your iCloud address book and create a single contact in your own name. Then tell Siri that contact is you. You can have it learn all the relationships you want (eg, mother, father, sister, brother). All your contacts are still in Exchange, except for that one iCloud contact you've set up for yourself.

As for drawbacks in the business context, just remember that Siri needs a good data connection to work. Most of us have wifi at home. At the office, I don't. And I work in lower Manhattan, where AT&T data is awful. 9 times out of 10, when I try to use Siri in the office, it just spins its wheels and gives up.

I would also like to chime in on this discussion. I myself find one of the most productivity increasing features that helps me literally all day is the system wide dictation. Being able to compose emails and/or texts messages on the fly is unbelievably invaluable. If you are on the road all time time like I am, this feature is a perfect addition to my corporate life.