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Comment by koreth1 | Hacker News Reader

> I've seen people who prefer to say "hey siri set alarm clock for 10 AM" rather than use the UI. Which makes sense, because language is the way people literally have evolved specialized organs for.

I don't think it's necessary to resort to evolutionary-biology explanations for that.

When I use voice to set my alarm, it's usually because my phone isn't in my hand. Maybe it's across the room from me. And speaking to it is more efficient than walking over to it, picking it up, and navigating to the alarm-setting UI. A voice command is a more streamlined UI for that specific task than a GUI is.

I don't think that example says much about chatbots, really, because the value is mostly the hands-free aspect, not the speak-it-in-English aspect.

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Even when my phone is in my hand I'll use voice for a number of commands, because it's faster.

I'd love to know the kind of phone you're using where the voice commands are faster than touchscreen navigation.

Most of the practical day to day tasks on the Androids I've used are 5-10 taps away from a lock screen, and get far less dirty looks from those around me.

My favorite voice command is to set a timer.

If I use the touchscreen I have to:

1 unlock the phone - easy, but takes an active swipe

2 go to the clock app - i might not have been on the home screen, maybe a swipe or two to get there

3 set the timer to what I want - and here it COMPLETELY falls down, since it probably is showing how long the last timer I set was, and if that's not what I want, I have to fiddle with it.

If I do it with my voice I don't even have to look away from what I'm currently doing. AND I can say "90 seconds" or "10 minutes" or "3 hours" or even (at least on an iPhone) "set a timer for 3PM" and it will set it to what I say without me having to select numbers on a touchscreen.

And 95% of the time there's nobody around who's gonna give me a dirty look for it.

and less mental overhead. Go to the home screen, find the clock app, go to the alarm tab, set the time, set the label, turn it on, get annoyed by the number of alarms that are there that I should delete so there isn't a million of them. Or just ask Siri to do it.

One thing people forget is that if you do it by hand you can do it even when people are listening, or when it’s loud. Meaning its working more reliable. And in your brain you only have to store one execution instead of two. So I usually prefer the more reliable approach.

I don’t know any people that do Siri except the people that have really bad eyes

God I miss physical buttons and controls. being able to do something without even looking at it.

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