The new iPhone was announced today. Let’s just look past all the idiocy proliferated by the mass media around “IT’S A 4S, NOT A 5”.

A dual-core A5 Chip, 8MP camera, full 1080p HD video recording and voice commands integrated into some apps through their Siri acquisition.

Siri is getting all the attention. It only works on the iPhone 4S.

I’ve used the voice-to-text features on my Android for over a year, and the only time I’ve found it actually useful is to dictate a text message while driving.

I have no doubt users will all give it a go, wanting it to work, and sure, it will, but once the novelty factor wears off, you’ll realise how much of a pain, and how awkward it actually is. You can tell it to set a reminder or ask it for the weather? Widgets, anyone?

In public it’s rude. In private it’s creepy. 

However accurate it may be, you’ll still want to double check it’s actually understood you, and the inevitable mistake will take more effort to correct than the effort needed to simply type out the message. damnyousiri.com and damnyousiri.tumblr.com have already been taken…

Then again, Apple have made it their business to take concepts that have been around for ages and incite mass adoption, so I look forward to seeing how it plays out. Seriously, how’s the Facetime takeup going though?

The more general concept around deep application and OS integration—whether it be through global search via your fingers or natural language via your voice—will be an interesting one to follow across iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7.

Let’s see what Samsung and Android serve up next week with the Ice Cream Sandwich and Nexus Prime announcement.