Siri works fine on jailbroken iPhone 4, why not officially?

By Joe Svetlik on 31 October 2011, 11:20am

Developer Steven Troughton-Smith had Siri working on his iPhone 4 shortly after the 4S launched, but with one major problem: it couldn't talk to Apple's servers, so local info couldn't be retrieved. (A bit like using Siri in the UK, then.)

Now he's fixed that, making it work fully on an iPhone 4, 9to5Mac reports. So what excuse does Apple have for keeping the voice-controlled assistant an iPhone 4S exclusive?

An iPhone 4S jailbreak was required to port the proper files for Siri's servers to connect to an iPhone 4. But the video demo below clearly shows it working, finding a local Starbucks, telling jokes, and answering how many metres are in a kilometre. Troughton-Smith has also made it work on an iPod touch.

"At this point it's all about confirming this works across devices... and documenting everything," Troughton-Smith told 9to5Mac. "It does require files from an iPhone 4S which aren't ours to distribute, and it also requires a validation token from the iPhone 4S that has to be pulled live from a jailbroken iPhone 4S, and it's about a 20-step process right now.

"It literally took no longer than 10 minutes to put all the pieces in place and perform our first test on my iPhone 4, and it was an instant success," he continued. The microphone on the fourth-gen iPod touch isn't as responsive, so it doesn't work as well.

Hopefully this will put pressure on Apple to release Siri for the iPhone 4, though it's highly likely it'll stay as a 4S exclusive to lure people into buying the new mobile. Despite record sales, plenty of iPhone 4 owners are still reluctant to upgrade, particularly with reports surfacing over the weekend of a bug in the new phone's location software causing serious battery drain problems.

Do you think Apple should officially bring Siri to the iPhone 4 and iPod touch? Let us know on our Facebook page, or in the comments section. Just don't ask us any tricky questions.

Comments 7

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Jay Ram 31 October, 2011 11:46

I want siri in iphone 4? wanna have? a good laugh?

like siri where is the g spot? LMAO! check out siricrazy .? com

Peter Hudson 31 October, 2011 12:04

It's only officially on the 4S because it is the only new feature that the 4S has, without Siri, the 4S is just a 4 with a slightly faster processor jammed in

Rob Wheatley 31 October, 2011 13:07

Hi All,

No one seems to have considered more practical reasons why Siri wasn't enabled on older devices. Like Apple said, it's for performance reasons. Everybody assumed they meant Siri required the performance of the phone itself and then cried foul when it was shown to work on older generation hardware.

The thing is, Apple were probably correct to say this. Siri requires backend support in the cloud. By constraining Siri to the 4s only, Apple know how to ramp the server hardware to keep in line with the manufacture of 4s'. If they enabled Siri for any device running iOS5, then the backend Siri infrastructure would have been swamped, thus damaging performance for everyone.

All I have to say is that sometimes there just isn't a conspiracy there as much as you may want there to be one.

Rob.

AppleRocks16 31 October, 2011 19:13

It will be interesting to see if Siri does come to the iPhone 4...

As some people were saying though, Siri is the main USP of the 4S....

I sort of doubt it though about it going to other devices like the iPad or iPhone 4

We may see soon when Siri is updated to be able to find local businesses. Another Apple cliffhanger

anonymous 31 October, 2011 22:44

Peter Hudon it's not just a bit faster as it's processor is atleast twice as fast in performance and several times faster in graphical performance topping the Samsung Galaxy S2. The 4s also has an 8mp camera and of course the exclusivity of the Siri voice assistant. But siri has already been ported over to the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4G so Apple may be pressured into applying the Siri voice assistant to the iPhone 4, but probably not the iPod Touch 4G as the microphone doesn't perform aswell as the one in the iPhone.