Apple iPhone 4S review

Lip reading

The standout new feature of the iPhone 4S has to be Siri, a voice-activated personal assistant. Simply hold down the Home button, the Siri interface pops up and you then tell it what to do, such as checking the weather, checking whether you have any upcoming appointments on a certain date, setting a reminder or dictating replies to texts and emails. Siri isn't like the traditional voice recognition and command systems on desktop computers where voice is used to control the cursor and onscreen controls. It's a completely separate, alternative iPhone interface in its own right one driven by voice rather than touch.

The beauty of Siri is that it talks back to you. So if you ask it to send an email to someone, it can ask you whether you want to send it to that person's home or work address. If you tag your relatives with the appropriate labels in your address book (wife, brother, husband etc), you can command Siri to email your brother rather than having to say his full name. Siri also recognises the context of your question, so if you just asked it to check whether you have any appointments on Monday, if you follow it up by asking 'how about Tuesday', it will know to check your calendar for the following day.