I am sure that Apple users and gadget lovers knows who Siri is. Siri is one of the new features that Apple introduced to their iPhone 4S.
Siri is a voice-activated assistant that extends the functionality of the iPhone. It allows for hands free use of the phone as Siri will execute actions like sending of email or text, searching the net, calling a contact and more with just a simple voice command.
This could have been a cool feature but it turns out, it has some issues. One of the problems that have been discovered with Siri a few days after it was launched was that it poses a great security risk because Siri can be activated even on a passcode-locked phone. This means that even strangers can issue commands to Siri since it is not tied to a single voice.
Aside from this security threat, studies have shown that iPhone 4S consumes more data usage and it is all because of Siri.
Arieso, an Atlanta-based mobile network-monitoring firm has conducted studies and the results were:
- iPhone 4S has three times more data usage than iPhone 3G.
- iPhone 4S consumes twice as much data usage as iPhone 4
They blame it all to Siri as Siri needs an active Internet connection to communicate to Apple’s server before performing each request. This contributes to big amount of data usage especially for those who use Siri all the time (which is a big possibility since it is a new feature so every iPhone owner would want t try it out and at the same time, it offers a great convenience because it allows for hands free use of the phone.)
What does this mean? Increase in data consumption brought about by this new applications introduced in most of today’s smart phones has an effect both on the carrier and the subscriber:
- iPhone 4S is not the only smart phone that consumes a lot of data. Android phones being released by different cell phone manufacturers are getting high tech everyday that it is equipped with data intensive applications like the integration of Cloud technology which requires active Internet connection too like Siri. This puts a great pressure on the mobile network providers as there is a need for them to upgrade their facilities to more sophisticated devices to prevent the clogging of their network with the increase in demand for data consumption brought about by this new applications.
- For the subscriber, this comes with a financial burden as wireless operators will definitely take advantage of the increase in data usage to raise their revenue. In fact, majority of the mobile carriers charge their subscriber by their data usage and only Sprint has retained their unlimited data plan.
Ever since Apple introduced their first model of iPhone, data usage has increase and has continually been increasing each year. If we will look at this trend and with the emergence of new technology like Siri and Cloud computing, mobile network carrier will really have to do something in the near future to meet the growing demands of android and smart phone users.
About the Author: Abie works as a content writer for afbtemplates. Afbtemplates is site where you can get a lot of animated Facebook templates.
