Bad news for tech-loving Scots—the iPhone 4S doesn’t understand what you’re saying. Siri, Apple’s personal assistant, can recognize accents everywhere from Australia to London (and respond in-kind). It can even understand you if you speak to it in French or German.
But live in Edinburgh or Aberdeen? Sorry, you’re out of luck.
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Several British papers, including the Daily Mail and The Independent, have reported that people with strong Scottish accents are having a hard time getting Siri to understand them. The video above shows a man with a strong Scottish accent failing to get Siri to perform a simple task: creating a reminder. Another video shows Siri misinterpreting 12 o’clock as “trebilcock,” while this BBC report shows the iPhone 4S misunderstanding such simple questions as “Is it a nice day?” on the streets of Aberdeen.
Ultimately, it might not make a difference; the man in the BBC video who claims he’ll buy the iPhone 4S regardless of whether or not it can understand his accent is not alone. According to the Daily Record, the phone, which retails for £499 in the U.K., still had people lining up—er, I mean, queueing—in front of Scotland’s three Apple stores on the day it was released.
For all the attention Siri is getting, this is a reminder that it’s not the only reason people are buying the iPhone 4S. The crisp resolution, the A5 dual-core chip and people’s fanatic devotion to Apple might have something to do with it as well.
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