Yes, yes, Apple released a video ad where Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson uses Siri to get him through his outrageous day.
As with any advertisement, Apple’s ad is designed to show you some of Siri’s abilities that you may not have known about. Or maybe you’ll think of Siri more often when you need to “get things done,” and you’ll actually start using it.
There’s just one big, glaring problem with the ad.
In the video, The Rock exclusively uses Siri in public, but no one likes to use Siri in public. This statement comes from a year-old study published in 2016 by Creative Strategies’ Carolina Milanesi. It’s 2017, and I don’t think anyone’s changed their minds about using Siri in public. This probably applies to any other smart AI voice assistant, for that matter.
That means that most people won’t use Siri when they’re out in public, which can be a large chunk of a person’s day. That poses a significant problem for Siri because we won’t get into the habit of using Siri throughout the day. As a result, it’s easy to forget that Siri is there.
In all honesty, only The Rock and a select few can use - or should be allowed to use - Siri in public. But I am not The Rock, and you are not The Rock (unless you are The Rock, in which case, hi). For the rest of us, using Siri in public just hasn't caught on, and we'll keep setting reminders, pulling up to-do lists and emails, or using Siri to place phone calls from our private confines, like at home or in our cars if we remember to use it.
If you haven't seen it already, here's The Rock's day with Siri:
