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A Look at the History of Siri and How it Almost Became an Android Exclusive for Verizon

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A few of the details on the the history of Siri, including Steve Jobs' move to contact the company just three weeks after the independent app's launch, have surfaced over the last several years, but The Huffington Post has now published an extensive history of the technology and company that reveals a few other interesting details.

The report outlines how Siri grew out of a Department of Defense project to integrate with 42 different web services to perform its virtual assistant services, many of which were discontinued when Apple scaled back the platform for inclusion in iOS. Apple has been relatively slow to build Siri's feature set back up, but has been making progress on the effort.

siri_icon_on_linen.jpg
Perhaps most interestingly, the report reveals that Siri was very nearly an Android exclusive for Verizon, but the deal was obviously broken when Steve Jobs and Apple moved quickly to acquire Siri.
In the fall of 2009, several months before Apple approached Siri, Verizon had signed a deal with the startup to make Siri a default app on all Android phones set to launch in the new year. When Apple swooped in to buy Siri, it insisted on making the assistant exclusive to Apple devices, and nixed the Verizon deal. In the process, it narrowly avoided seeing Siri become a selling point for smartphones powered by its biggest rival, Google. (Somewhere in the vaults of the wireless giant, there are unreleased commercials touting Siri as an Android add-on.)
Click to expand...
The report goes on to discuss some of the challenges faced by Siri at Apple, including difficulties in negotiating partnerships with content providers, Apple's emphasis on broadening access to other countries and languages over pushing the technology forward for a smaller subset of users, and corporate politics that have resulted in the loss of some of Siri's biggest advocates at Apple.

Siri is also facing strong competition from the Android platform of which it was almost a part. Google has moved quickly to develop its own virtual assistant capabilities in the form of Google Now, and many are looking for Apple to step up the pace of improvement with Siri in order to reestablish it in users' minds as a key advantage for Apple as it was touted at its 2011 launch on the iPhone 4S.

Article Link: A Look at the History of Siri and How it Almost Became an Android Exclusive for Verizon
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/01/23/a-look-at-the-history-of-siri-and-how-it-almost-became-an-android-exclusive-for-verizon/
Shasterball

Shasterball

Suspended
Oct 19, 2007
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750
Siri is still crippled and barely useful - especially in loud situations. It's been relegated in my experience to setting up reminders and asking about sports scores...
 
JaySoul

JaySoul

macrumors 68030
Jan 30, 2008
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2,865
Useless until it can successfully execute "Siri, make me a sandwich."
 
ds2000

ds2000

macrumors 6502a
May 24, 2012
571
337
Siri is useless, in our house all I ever hear people using it for is "X minute timer" when cooking and the occasional whats the sport score. It is quite handy at opening apps..... unless its noisy.

We are all tech savvy people, 4 iPhone 4's in the house and we hardly use it.
 
G

grayskies

macrumors regular
Nov 9, 2006
135
45
and corporate politics that have resulted in the loss of some of Siri's biggest advocates at Apple

-looks like politics ruin everything
 
S

samcraig

macrumors P6
Jun 22, 2009
16,779
41,982
USA
Siri was great as an independent app. Of course it wasn't integrated into an OS. But a great app - that DID indeed, become crippled once bought by Apple.
 
KnightWRX

KnightWRX

macrumors Pentium
Jan 28, 2009
15,046
4
Quebec, Canada
I think some of the reasons that Google Now is good vs Siri is because it actively "guesses" what you need, while Siri is something you need to constantly ask things of. Google Now alerts you with things before you even think of asking them.

However, one of the big hurdle Siri faces is its reliance on always-on connectivity. Without a data connection, Siri can't even perform offline functions on your phone (like setting reminders, opening apps, playing music that's stored in your library) which also hurts perception of its use when you're limited for connectivity (low signal areas or plain not having data because being abroad). I don't know how Google Now fares in this capacity, not having really used it.

Anyway, I've disabled Siri, much less time consuming to just touch my way to things than ask it, wait for it to analyse what I want, ask for a confirmation, wait for it to analyse my confirmation.
 
S

Superken7

macrumors member
Feb 13, 2011
55
0
AustinIllini said:
So does this mean we can stop with the "Apple only cares about America" angle?
Click to expand...

What? Apple must be one of the most worldwide-release and worldwide-accessible friendly tech companies out there. Devices are launched close to simultaneously, and services catch up very quickly. In this aspect, they are light years ahead of Google, Amazon, Netflix, and pretty much everybody else too. (And don't get me wrong, I'm more of an Android user) I never heard anybody say that Apple only cares about America :S so I was surprised.
 
Stella

Stella

macrumors G3
Apr 21, 2003
8,838
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Apple needs to improve SIRI's accuracy. I find myself needing to repeat several times - so its quicker to do the task manually.
 
TimUSCA

TimUSCA

macrumors 6502a
Mar 17, 2006
701
1,539
Aiken, SC
Shasterball said:
Siri is still crippled and barely useful - especially in loud situations. It's been relegated in my experience to setting up reminders and asking about sports scores...
Click to expand...
I use it all the time. Mostly for dictating text messages or getting directions while I drive, but sometimes for reminders, sports scores, and quick notes. I rarely have to repeat myself, so I don't know where people's issues are coming from. I'm not saying the issues aren't there... they just aren't for me.
 
Xenomorph

Xenomorph

macrumors 65816
Aug 6, 2008
1,397
829
St. Louis
Siri is terrible.

The stand-alone app could do so much more (get a taxi, etc).

The Apple-version relies way too much on server-side processing.
 
BornAgainMac

BornAgainMac

macrumors 604
Feb 4, 2004
7,282
5,268
Florida Resident
Siri is more of a prototype of a future locally run Siri that will offer 100 times more functionality. Something like J.A.V.I.S from Iron Man. Then people will use it.
 
B

Beezzy

macrumors 6502
Apr 23, 2011
268
11
Siri will improve over time. The more people that use it is the only way Apple can collect true data on how we speak to Siri, and what we want Siri to do that it can't do already.

Google uses it much better because it searches for things it can't do Automatically. Most of us (like myself) hate when the "would you like for me to search blah blah blah" response comes up, Google's just does it and its much faster.
 
S

SpinThis!

macrumors 6502
Jan 30, 2007
480
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Inside the Machine (Green Bay, WI)
KnightWRX said:
Without a data connection, Siri can't even perform offline functions on your phone... which also hurts perception of its use when you're limited for connectivity
Click to expand...

That's a good point. When Siri eventually comes out of beta, I would bet it'll be more standalone. It works fast on Wi-Fi and passable on LTE/4G but Google's voice search on the iPhone shows you can do transcription immediately without a data connection. That's where Siri needs to be.

TimUSCA said:
I use it all the time. Mostly for dictating text messages or getting directions while I drive, but sometimes for reminders, sports scores, and quick notes.
Click to expand...
That's what Siri is great for. Anything short and to the point. Setting reminders, timers, and alarms and sending quick texts Siri has been immensely useful for me. Without Siri those quick tasks would easily take a lot longer... unlock your phone, get into the app you want, find or type in what you need and get out. Siri does all that in about 1 press. I don't think it was ever intended to dictate long e-mails.
 
WillFisher

WillFisher

macrumors 6502
Feb 19, 2011
387
16
As with others, I use Siri for reminders and timers, occasionally Sports Scores and Cinema times. But until its 100% perfect, I can't see the point in lots of areas unless I'm using both hands already.
 
ConCat

ConCat

macrumors 6502a
Jul 27, 2012
722
0
In an ethereal plane of existence.
I can only imagine what it must be like having to deal with all the many strange accents out there. It isn't nearly enough to segment Siri by country, you have to segment by part of country, like the southern US accent vs northern accent, maybe even the Bostonian accent, then there's the black accent, and all those exist in one country and are quite different in many ways... Then we head to England and... Oh boy.
 
A

alent1234

macrumors 603
Jun 19, 2009
5,688
170
the most useless feature on my iphone

if i want to check the scores, i go to espn or yahoo
if i want movie times i go to fandango

the reason is the apps give so much more information than what you ask for
 
T

till213

Suspended
Jul 1, 2011
423
89
Siri? Siri?

Siri? Siri? What was that again? Ah yes, I remember, that was that party joke back then! Yeah, we had a good one... ;)
 
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