Using Siri to capture my thoughts directly into my Inbox
I just wanted to let everyone know that using Siri to capture my ideas or thoughts, directly into my Nirvana inbox works perfectly.
I was driving down the road and used my Jawbone ERA to activate Siri. I then told her to email "Nirvana" which is a contact I have setup.
Siri asked me, what would I like the subject to be. I told her and then she said, what would you like the email to say. I spoke to her and capture the details of my task.
When I was done, Siri emailed Nirvana and it showed up in my Nirvana inbox.
Awesome.
2 Posted by dafyren on 16 Oct, 2011 08:37 AM
Lucky you Proximo! I still have to wait a couple of weeks before I can get mine in Europe.
Have a question for you about your use of iOS 5 and GTD, since you are the GTD expert :)
I really like the geo-reminder function in the iOS 5 reminders app (where I get reminded about something when I leave from/arrive to a specific location). This is great and I see it as a true way of using contexts as I am only reminded when I am actually at a location and can do something about it.
Clearly, regardless what GTD solution we use, we will have to wait for long time before there is a good implementation of geo-reminders. So I was wondering how I could best use the current iOS 5.0 Reminders app at the same time as I use a GTD solution as Nirvana.
Do you have any thoughts about it, and do you use this feature?
3 Posted by Phil on 16 Oct, 2011 03:53 PM
@Proximo
Soooooooo jealous!
4 Posted by Proximo on 17 Oct, 2011 03:23 AM
@Dafyren
For me the solution is easy. I never look at my GTD system as any one app or service. My GTD system has always been made up of several and I use the best app for any part of my system.
Nirvana is my Task/Project manager of my GTD system. Although Nirvana has "Scheduled" which can be used as a Reminder feature, I still use other options for Reminders. For a long time I used Google Calendar but this was not the best tool for Reminders. I then started using an app on my iPhone that allowed me to enter and maintain my reminders which I liked very much. This kept my Google Calendar free for hard dates like meetings and gave me a reminder solution in my pocket which made the most sense for me anyway.
Now with iOS5, I have switched from using the app I had, to using the native reminder feature built into iOS5. The ability to simply tell Siri what things I want to be reminded about makes it even more appealing.
So it's easy for me. I just switched to the Reminders app in iOS5.
5 Posted by dafyren on 17 Oct, 2011 11:39 AM
You have a good point there. I should probably stop thinking about GTD as being "one" app or service only :)
I am so much looking forward to integrate Miss Siri into my GTD system.
6 Posted by Phil on 20 Oct, 2011 02:57 AM
I've never used Remember the Milk so am not sure what they are doing here, but I wonder if the same could be done with Nirvana. I'll leave that to the Siri folks on this forum.
http://www.mobileburn.com/chtml/mobile_story.jsp?Id=17128&title...
7 Posted by Proximo on 21 Oct, 2011 07:41 PM
@Phil
Very interesting.
I currently link my iPhone with Google Calendar, Google Contacts and Google Mail. So when I create a meeting, it shows up in Google Calendar. When I compose an email, it's sent through Gmail and when I use my contacts, it pulls from my Google Contacts.
So using Siri to compose an email that is sent to my Nirvana Inbox is very simple and does not require a special setup on my end.
Since I don't use RTM or it's calendar. The standard functionality out of the box with Siri and my setup works perfectly as is.
It is nice how RTM was able to utilize Siri in this way. Too bad the reminders are duplicated on RTM and the Reminder app.
My setup is simple and keeps everything in it's right place. :-)
8 Posted by Neil on 25 Oct, 2011 04:14 PM
Damn, that's really cool. And I was going to wait until the next iPhone to upgrade :(
9 Posted by Proximo on 25 Oct, 2011 06:43 PM
I asked Siri... "What are you wearing". She told me. "Why does everyone always ask me that?"
ROFL
I love her......
I asked her. "What is the meaning of life?" She said "All evidence suggest it's Chocolate." :-)
I told her. "Thank you Siri, you are very helpful" She said. "I live to serve"
I am so in love.
10 Posted by Neil on 25 Oct, 2011 09:41 PM
Well tell her from me she'll soon be mine...
*Scans house for 5th time today for stuff to Ebay*11 Posted by Phil on 19 Nov, 2011 02:13 PM
Wow . . .
http://appadvice.com/appnn/2011/11/omnifocusiphone-siri
Hopefully Nirvana can get this working on their iPhone app. It even adds contexts.
12 Posted by Proximo on 21 Nov, 2011 06:58 PM
@Phil
That's a cool new feature for OmniFocus users. I think you will see more and more apps working with Siri as developers figure out clever uses for it. Siri is also going to support many more services that will provide you information like Yelp and Wofram Alpha.
13 Posted by Phil on 07 Feb, 2012 03:52 AM
Well I'm finally on the Siri wagon. Managed to get the ole girl up and running over the weekend via jailbreak on my iPhone 4, then installing chpwn's Spire from Cydia, and getting hooked up with one of the proxy servers reviewed in this app advice article. The whole thing works very well.
http://appadvice.com/appnn/2012/02/jailbreak-only-spire-siri-proxie...
Gotta say, finally being able to add items to my Nirvana inbox by talking to my phone is pretty slick. For what it's worth, Siri didn't seem to recognize Nirvana as one of my contacts when I had it listed as a company in Contacts. Changing it to a person with Nirvana as the first name and Inbox as the last name fixed that. Now, I can just say "Email Nirvana" and Siri recognizes it.
14 Posted by Proximo on 07 Feb, 2012 04:58 PM
Siri is in beta and does not work sometimes.
As Apple finalizes Siri and adds more services to it, it will become more and more useful.
Sometimes Siri does not work well or stops working all together, but this is all part of the beta experience. :-)
15 Posted by schollguin on 17 Feb, 2012 05:13 AM
Proximo (or anyone else for that matter),
Just curious. Have you figured out a way to get Siri to send an email with no text in the body of the message? Or to skip her confirmations? I used to use VocaNote on my Android and the one nice thing I liked about it was that I could click one button, say "Pick up Dry Cleaning", stop talking and then it would fire off the email to Nirvana with "Pick up Dry Cleaning" as the Task Name and the message body. One click and one short sentence fragment. Trying to figure out the best way to replicate that with Siri… So far the best I've been able to do is Use the syntax. "[EMAIL] [Nirvana] [ABOUT] [Pick Up Dry Cleaning] [SAY] [Some gibberish]" It only works about half the time, because the timing has to be just right…frequently she still asks me "What would you like to say?".
thanks for any insight.
16 Posted by schollguin on 17 Feb, 2012 05:38 AM
Ahh never mind, Captio + Siri I guess is pretty good alternative on the iPhone. But still really interested to know if anyone has figured out how to send an email with Siri sans the message body.
And oh yeah, Siri is pretty awesome…
17 Posted by Proximo on 18 Feb, 2012 02:31 PM
@schollguin,
I don't know of a way to make Siri skip the email body. In the corporate world, that would be a bad thing to do, so maybe this is why it works this way.
18 Posted by Don on 28 Feb, 2012 08:37 PM
@Proximo,
I wish I could get Siri to work. She can't seem to figure out my Nirvana contact is who I mean by "Nirvana".
Me: "Email remember to do the thing"
Siri" "To whom shall I send it?"
Me: "Nirvana"
Siri: "To whom shall I send it?"
...and we loop forever. Just to make sure Siri understood my southern accent, I said "Email Nirvana" and it created an email message with a subject of "Nirvana".
Once, I did get her to catch Nirvana as the To filed, but we looped on "I don't know what you mean, Nirvana".
I have tried:
Sigh.
19 Posted by Phil on 28 Feb, 2012 08:45 PM
I had the same problem. Changing the contact to
First name: Nirvana
Last name: Inbox
seemed to fix it for me. Though, I really don't ever add tasks this way anymore. It was a novelty that wore off pretty quick. Though, it is nice to know its there if you need it.
20 Posted by Proximo on 03 Mar, 2012 02:46 PM
You can pick a completely new name that is easy to say such as "GTD".
"email GTD"
The other option is that you can add Phonetic names to a contact. You type how the word sounds phonetically with the keyboard and then Siri would use that to figure it out. In the contacts info page, just choose add new field and you will see Phonetic Name on there.
I have a friend who's name is "Isai". Siri can't figure out what I am saying when I try to email him with Siri. If you add the Phonetic word into the contact info, such as "e saw ee". Siri can figure it out.
It's a hidden option most people don't know about. :-)