Hands-free texting on the iPhone not as easy as it looks

siri.jpgView full sizeCommuting columnist Joseph Rose found Siri a little less than helpful when trying to text hands-free from a car.

Have you seen that Apple ad?

You know,

who looks like the perfect dad, husband and bro using his iPhone to flawlessly send a text message – without using his hands! He's talking to "Siri," the much-hyped voice-activated "personal assistant" that can read incoming text messages and gives you the power to reply without typing.

So cool, especially for people in Oregon, Washington and other states with hands-free driving laws. As cellphones become a standard feature of modern life, Siri's glowing purple icon is winking at us, saying, "Talk to me. You can text AND pilot through the thick of Oregon 217's morning madness."

Hard Drive

Joseph Rose

covers commuting for The Oregonian and writes

.

But several Portland area drivers using the world's most popular smartphone have contacted me to say Apple has deployed its famous "reality distortion field" on the commuting world. After my own frustrating texting experiment with Siri in traffic this week – sans hands – I agree. There's also the legality.

First, my ride with Siri. Using the basic kit featured in the ad -- a white earbud with a microphone plugged into an iPhone 4s – I reached the point where I felt like making her walk home.

For three months, I've used Siri to look up contacts, make calls and get directions. I thought we understood each other. But in heavy traffic on westbound U.S. 26, it took five attempts to successfully send a simple text –"How is your day going?" –to my wife, Heidi.

On the first go, Siri's matronly voice read the error-free message back to me but refused to send it. I tried again. She/it misheard "Text Heidi" and wanted to text "A. Davenport." On another attempt, the app ignored me. Siri had seemingly jumped out of the car. It was the first of many times that I took my eyes off the road to see if it had dictated a message. Blank screen. (Me: "Siri, are you there?" Siri: "Wherever you are, that's where I am." Creepy.)

Over two hours, I experienced the same maddening (and highly distracting) problems when trying to text an editor and friends. Eventually, I was engaged in a no-hands texting exchange with Heidi as I drove through Beaverton. She asked me to pick up bananas on the way home. "OK," I replied. Instead of sending the message, Siri started playing a Radiohead song.

Me: "Siri, I can't understand what you're doing." Siri: "If you can't, you can't." Great. Now, she was being passive aggressive. Buckets of rain pounded the windshield. Red brake lights lit up on the Sunset Highway. It was time to end an experiment that was turning out to be just as distracting as regular texting.

That's not the only problem. After the drive, I talked to Oregon State Police Sgt. Dan Swift. Unlike some states that allow emerging hands-free texting technologies, Swift said, Oregon still bans all forms of texting. A lot of drivers, he added, probably don't realize the "hands-free" allowance applies only to voice calls.

In 2011, OSP wrote 1,423 tickets and issued 2,359 warnings to drivers caught violating the state's cellphone restrictions. Unwittingly or not, it looked as though I was about to become part of 2012's statistics. "Listen," Swift said. "I didn't witness it, so you're safe."

I can't say the same for Siri.

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