How to Use Siri to Help You Shop for Gadgets

We’ve seen Siri do everything from turn on a fireplace to control a TV set, so there’s not much that Apple’s digital assistant can do at this point that would surprise us. But all of these tricks require use of the Siri Proxy.

What about the average user that probably hasn’t installed the proxy? Well, there’s still Wolfram Alpha. The database allows you to do a number of things with Apple’s new handset, and it just added another cool feature.

The company behind Wolfram Alpha has just announced a new shopping-aid feature built around Best Buy’s product catalog APIs. That means that you can now use Siri to browse over 35,000 appliances and electronics. Wow.

You’re probably wondering how you can try this out for yourself. It’s easy. Simply activate Siri from your handset and say “Wolfram TVs” or “Wolfram Tablets.” You can swap out the accompanying search term for a number of products.

The feature works fairly well, but there are a few quirks. For example, the search doesn’t populate any web links — it’s just a search. And queries for small products like movies or games doesn’t seem to return any usable results.

Even though it’s a bit preschool right now, Wolfram’s Best Buy integration could be a sign of things to come. Imagine using Siri to look up restaurant menus or movie times. We expect big things from Apple’s assistant in the future.

[TUAW]