Siri Gets Hacked: Running on iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4G
by Kristian Vättö on October 30, 2011 4:42 AM ESTWhen iPhone 4S was announced earlier this month, one of the mightiest features was definitely Apple's new voice control software: Siri. Siri understands normal speech, so you can send text messages and set alarms and so on by speaking to your phone. While Siri is purely software, Apple has limited it to iPhone 4S. Other supported devices can upgrade to iOS 5, but Siri will not be included. However, it has been widely expected that Siri will soon be hacked to run on unsupported devices - and that day has now come.
Developers Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) and @chpwn have managed to get Siri to run on iPhone 4 and fourth generation iPod Touch (uses the same A4 chip as iPhone 4, but has only 256MB of RAM). Even without the dual core A5 chip, Siri appears to run smoothly. Troughton-Smith said that Siri runs as fast on iPhone 4 as it does on iPhone 4S. The iPod Touch has some problems due to the inferior microphone (iPod Touch wasn't designed for calling like iPhone), requiring you to talk very loudly but the actual Siri software runs flawlessly. Below is a video of Siri running on the iPod Touch.
Owners of iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4G shouldn't get too excited though, as Troughton-Smith says a public release should not be expected anytime soon. There may also be legal issues of distributing Apple's code, making a public release impossible.
Source: MacRumors
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drgigolo - Sunday, October 30, 2011 - link
Still waiting for it...solipsism - Sunday, October 30, 2011 - link
I'd love to know when to expect the review.GotThumbs - Wednesday, November 2, 2011 - link
Apples Lawyers eyes just perked up....Another lawsuit...Yes MoMONEy MoMoney.I'm joking, but YOU know their lawyers have already looked into this story.
I love the fact that its already been hacked. Sweet.
No benefit for me though....I made a choice not to own Apple products.
gevorg - Sunday, October 30, 2011 - link
Just leak "the Apple code" in the wild dude, you don't have to host it or anything. ;)inplainview - Sunday, October 30, 2011 - link
While they may be able to get it to run... Apple will block this. People seem to forget that Apple is not a non-for-profit company but is out to make money just like Android's manufacturers, Nokia, SE (now Sony), et al. To continually single out Apple as the only company wanting money is typically myopic and well stupid.Tetracycloide - Sunday, October 30, 2011 - link
Are you finished pillorying that straw man or did you have more?munky - Monday, October 31, 2011 - link
Nokia and Android manufacturers don't block their users from "unauthorized" device upgrades and customizations. You're only making excuses for Apple. This is one reason I refuse to buy their products.Chaser - Monday, October 31, 2011 - link
Apple makes obscene profits? Someone from OWS should pay Cupertino a tent visit.dryloch - Sunday, October 30, 2011 - link
He thinks they are trying to work out the kinks with a smaller user base before opening it up to millions more people. People who have it now are sometimes getting network busy messages when trying to use it.solipsism - Sunday, October 30, 2011 - link
It's possible. Data mining is a valuable commodity and Siri provides the most direct and raw information about users' habits.I'm sure some — especially on this site — will claim Apple didn't release Siri on the other devices getting iOS 5.0 to force users to buy a new iPhone but that simply doesn't make sense. Even with the first 3 days of 4 million new units sold there were reports of Siri's servers being overloaded. Now imagine if that was 150M plus from all iDevices that could install iOS 5.0. Best to build out slowly as you work through this public Beta.
22 countries received the iPhone on Friday can't use much of Siri's features. I hope Apple get's that's sorted out quickly because it's a great feature.
I tested Android's Speaktoit app. It's okay, but not nearly as intuitive and being a separate apps makes it less useful than it could be. I hope Google plans to buy this or another company to incorporate such a feature into Android, but looking at how much Google has spent on Android, how little they mentioned Android their earnings call, and the legal surrounding it I wonder if they've given up on expanding Android with such features.
• Android Market: Speaktoit - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.speaktoi...
PS: Didn't Phil Schiller mention a new feature of the A5 chip for sound processing?