Apple Has No Plans to Support Siri on Older Devices

[abbstrack]

fragmentation.

can anyone tell me what's the difference between this and android's gingerbread vs ice cream sandwich vs. whatever other name they have where some devices aren't privy to sw updates that their phones are clearly capable of running?

I think apple is losing the value proposition battle here, a space they have long owned.

 

[DeathChill]

Apple is using marketingspeak.

Siri does work on older devices. Apple is specifically choosing to not enable it.

Yes - Apple is telling the truth in terms of how they have differentiated the 4S. They are not telling the "truth" in terms of possibility.

Are you privy to information I am not? When did Apple ever comment on why older devices wouldn't get Siri?

 

[milo]

Just about the most meaningless story ever. Of course they're going to say they currently have no plans...because they can always change those plans and do something completely different.

I'd also argue that this may not even address the iPad 2, it's the current device and arguably not "older".

 

[rwilliams]

My hopes are that by the time I buy the next iteration of the iPhone in 2012, Apple will have resolved all of the downtime issues with Siri and I won't have to participate in the public beta testing.

 

[powers74]

question

Looks like you might also want to ask if Apple is working on the battery life issue.

fragmentation.

can anyone tell me what's the difference between this and android's gingerbread vs ice cream sandwich vs. whatever other name they have where some devices aren't privy to sw updates that their phones are clearly capable of running?

I think apple is losing the value proposition battle here, a space they have long owned.

iOS 5 goes back all the way to 3GS. Some features that perform sub-par (or are left out to boost sales) do not come to older devices. The updated devices still benefit from all the other features & bug fixes of the new OS. Not the same at all.

 

[Tinmania]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

The server load argument obviously doesn't hold up. But to remove all doubt....

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2...-is-siri-on-an-iphone-4s-ars-investigates.ars

Seems that average data usage per request is less than half that of a digital picture taken with the iPhone.... In some cases even much less (rta). How can server load would be a problem with Siri being available in older devices if apple is backing up hundreds or even thousands of your pictures with the stream for all iOS devices(3GS, 4, touches, iPads) and distributing them between them and even to your macs. Remember Siri uses much less data per request than 1 picture and and is single use. It is obvious that server load was not the issue.... Likewise you can easily prove that the Siri app can run on older devices as evidenced by the hack and the previous app available on the store..

I like my Mac and my iOS devices but I know when apple is feeding me crap and I won't buy it.

I don't know how you took the leap from an ars article about Siri and data usage to suddenly knowing the servers can handle anything... because of photo stream? Wow. Photo stream is not a real-time service, nor is it doing anything but saving files. Not even comparable.

More importantly data transfer to Siri is only the first step. It is once there that the work begins.

Finally, we don't know if the problem with Siri is the servers or the pipes getting TO the servers. I hope the huge complex in NC is not a "all eggs in one basket" situation.



Michael

 

[dethmaShine]

For those who didn't know, Siri was available as a downloadable app on the app store up until the launch of the 4S. Although it didn't have the integration with the native apps, or the dictate capability on the keyboard, it otherwise had the same voice recognition functionality with regards to asking Siri questions. The 4S version did not expand on the voice recognition, it simply added integration to the native apps.

Thus, I would seriously doubt Apple's assertion that older phones are simply not capable of running Siri - they did so just fine before the 4S launch date. The processing power required is not the integration with the other apps, but the processing of the voice (and this it appears is actually done on Apple's servers.)

Furthermore, Apple disabled the old Siri app the day after the iPhone 4S was released. Way to go Apple!

And that is something small? That is exactly the point of purchase: Integrating siri with all the apps on the iPhone(3rd party APIs yet to come).

What exactly do you want siri to do more? Come out and have sex?

C'mon.

 

[LeoNobilis]

How so?

Make sense. Even though it all done over the air, if you can milk your loyal customers, then do it. Frankly, no one would bother to get the 4S if it just had a slightly improved camera, and an A5.

You may be right. But let me take it from there and add: Apple's resort to artificially cripple its devices irritates me more and more, and I'm on a verge of dumping the company. I have a suspicion, I won't be the only one if I do. This is pissing in the customers' mouths. The same story with their desperate PPC propaganda a few years back, the same story with the earlier iPhones' underclocked processors, with the "Apple is the better than competitors" when 4 (2 PPC & 2 Intel) of my 5 Macs ended with irreparably damaged logic boards, optical drives and batteries half-a-year to two years from the date of purchase. Or the "Our new [X model of] Mac Pro is the most powerful computer in existence at the moment", while all benchmarks and field tests refute that claim decidedly (as there are more than twice as powerful systems there - and costing considerably less). Just say: "You want Mac OS X? You'll have to buy an Apple. And - yes, you'll have to endure all of its great flaws. If you want a vastly better (although physically uglier) computer, you'll have to run Windows or Linux." Not: "Our computers are the pinnacle of this-and-that" - that's too brazen a lie! Bloody Charlatans!

I used to be an iFanatic, too, you know, and would condone everything from them - lies, trickery, brazen propaganda…

 

[Hurda]

fragmentation.

can anyone tell me what's the difference between this and android's gingerbread vs ice cream sandwich vs. whatever other name they have where some devices aren't privy to sw updates that their phones are clearly capable of running?

Siri can't be used/accessed/utilized by third-party apps yet, so there's no fragmentation in this regard yet.

 

[Stowaway]

But what about all those reports...

But what about all those stories that came out a few days ago suggested Apple was currently testing Siri on the iPhone 4 internally?

It makes complete marketing sense that Siri would be 4S exclusive, but a relatively anonymous e-mail from "Apple Engineering" with a generic statement like this seems a bit absurd to get worked up over.

I'm sure even if Apple were testing Siri on iPhone 4's and iPad 2's internally, they'd still tell all of their general employee's there were "no plans" to bring it to older devices until they made an official decision to release it.

 

[applephysci]

They might very well do that when it is ready. Right now, it is still a beta and clearly not ready. Limiting it to the 4s is a good way to control access. 9 times out of ten, all I can get from Siri is "sorry, but I am not able to connect right now." That won't sell to happy customers for $20. Even when it works, its probably not going to be worth $20, but it is going to be worth something. $9.99 maybe.

Like others shared, it's mostly for fun and people seem to wear off it after a few tries or so. It's not at all super-productive as Apple claims, even if it were 'post-beta'. If they had to put a price tag on it, $0.99 maybe.

 

[iEvolution]

They might for the iPad but I doubt they will for the iPhone 4, I mean it is one of the main features to get people to upgrade and Apple isn't exactly known to port an exclusive feature on a new device and put it on an old device, they want people to upgrade after all.

I mean they wouldn't port the Search feature on the 5.5G video to the 5G even though they were the same except for a brighter back light and capacity bump.

 

[kinderdm]

Should make it available now

Apple is going to miss an opportunity by delaying this app to older devices. If they come out with an app purchase later or I have to upgrade to get it we will reach a point when someone else is doing much more amazing things. I will be upgrade ready but will look and see that some other company has voice control or some other feature that blows this away and there will be no reason not to go for it. If it were released to everyone now then we get used to it, get comfortable with it, and then relearning a new system will be more daunting and people will be more likely to stay with apple. Let people learn to love it now before they learn to love something else.

 

[MacAddict1978]

I still can see Apple releasing it as a paid app down the line when it exits beta.

Apple is the master of saying something today, and doing the opposite tomorrow. "People don't read..." two months later... "coming soon, the iBooks store!" Seriously, books were in development while Jobs was blasting the concept in an interview.

With Apple you never know, even when they say never or no.

If it doesn't, no big deal. Most people that didn't upgrade to the 4S are going to the next model next year anyway and won't have to deal with the bugs and glitches.

 

[cjmillsnun]

you're mistaken. Siri isn't just integrated with native apps, it's integrated with the whole operating system.

you think that was done for free? Apple's gotta make the money back somehow, and they're doing that with the iPhone 4S.

plus, no one (not even me) is entitled to Siri unless you own an iPhone 4S. you were never promised anything, so people really need to stop bringing this up

Spot on. Apple didn't even have to give iOS5 to iPhone 4 users let alone 3GS users. All they had to do is sell it with the original software. The fact they do update these existing users and add features was unheard of before the iPhone.

Apple is the only company to have updated the software on 100% of their phones from that originally supplied.

 

[Jimmy James]

Engineering has provided the following feedback regarding this issue: Siri only works on iPhone 4S [because we disabled it for all prior devices] and we currently have no plans to support older devices.

 

[Benguitar]

This isn't surprising to me..

Because I'm pretty sure they did the same thing when they announced VoiceControl on the iPhone 3GS.

They didn't bring it to the iPhone 3G.

I forgot who said it, But I've heard the line that

"Steve Jobs was not afraid to make his own devices, Obsolete."

Steve, Or well Apple in general, Moves forward, They (To me) do not focus much on the previous generations once the new devices are released.

Which is kinda good, But also kinda bad.

Good - It keeps them moving forward and innovative

Bad - Previous generations start to lose support/updates and new features.

 

[Phooto]

Just as well anyway, Siri's getting me in trouble - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1587376/201111/wife.mp3

 

[soosy]

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/11/0...d-ir-sensor-for-siris-raise-to-speak-feature/

The 4S has at least one hardware feature to support Siri, so there's at least a little justification as to why it's 4S only.

Sure Siri could likely work well enough without that, but it wouldn't be the 100% full experience.

 

[Shadyriley]

I've had the 4S for two days and the only time I used it was today when Imwas out because it was raining, had it read my text and reps, although it didn't get ll my words right