Apple’s Siri hits the road

It’s been more than a year now since we all fell in love with Siri – Apple’s sometimes witty, always entertaining, often helpful electronic assistant built into the iPhone 4 and 5 as well as the new fourth-generation iPad. We’ve held her gently in our hands, whispering sweet nothings into her little purple microphone, hoping she’ll come through with the answer we’re seeking.

Now, General Motors is letting us take her out for a drive.

GM announced Tuesday at the Los Angeles Auto Show that it has successfully incorporated  Siri into  the new infotainment systems in its two smallest cars, Chevrolet Spark and Sonic. It’ll also appear in GM’s 2014  Spark EV battery-electric vehicle.

You get the picture: chat away with Siri while you’re cruising down the highway without having to take your eyes off the road. Check sports scores and movies times, dial up  friends, send tweets about how fast you’re going. Whatever . . . Siri, working alongside GM’s own MyLink’s technology, will get the job done.

“Safe, easy, reliable and portable connectivity is a top priority for our customers and Siri complements MyLink’s existing capabilities to help deliver an incredible driving experience,” said Cristi Landy, Chevrolet’s small car marketing director, referring to the brand’s current infotainment technology.

The technology will connect to MyLink using the vehicle’s  Bluetooth technology. And GM will stick a special Siri activation button on the steering wheel.

How cute is that?

GM is clearly using Siri to help seduce  those younger tech-savvy drivers, hopefully locking them in as longtime customers for decades to come.

Pat May (156 Posts)

With more than 30 years on the front line of daily American journalism, I'm currently a staff writer with the San Jose Mercury News, covering Apple and writing people-centric business stories from Silicon Valley.