More than that, they're incredibly useful and powerful -- especially if you use my three Pro Tips at the bottom of this column.

I stand by my claims and predictions about Siri. But I also have to admit a bias in favor of voice-based personal assistants, and for two reasons.

First, any reader of my column in this space knows I've been trying to "roll my own" virtual assistant .

I've been testing and using various services that do part of what Siri does, including Jott, Vlingo, reQall and most recently Dial2Do, and have written about them extensively.