The iPad 2 doesn't run the Voice command feature. So I presume that it won't run Siri, either.
That's with iOS 4. No reason that couldn't change with iOS 5.
True. But it does reveal an existing view, within Apple, that voice commands and voice-driven interaction are
much less of a priority with a tablet form factor than with a phone.
The value of something like Siri is greatest in situations where your hands and/or eyes are otherwise occupied, and you can't manipulate the phone in the usual manner. The likelihood of finding yourself in such a situation while having your phone is in your pocket is much greater than the likelihood of being in such a situation with an iPad sitting next to you.
The greater screen size of the iPad comes with a correspondingly greater emphasis on tactile input and visual output. Apple may have deemed, for the time being, that the usage case for Siri on an iPad is too weak to prioritize giving it an interface suitable for the iPad screen.
Additionally: typing on the iPad, with its full-size onscreen keyboard, is much easier than on the iPhone's comparatively tiny screen -- there is consequently less of an impetus for voice recognition functions as a substitute form of text entry.
There is also the possibility that the 4S includes other hardware features, beyond just the faster CPU, that are required to make Siri work. Unlikely, I think, but possible.
If Siri is a huge hit with the 4S, and if there's no technical limitation preventing it from working on an iPad 2, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple added that as a feature in iOS 5.1 or 5.2. Purely from an accessibility standpoint, I think they'd see some value in doing it. But software development takes time, user interfaces for the iPad are not the same as for an iPhone, and Apple does not have unlimited resources; it could be that Siri-on-iPad is something that was deferred to a later date, with all current efforts going into the already massive set of software releases coming next week.
Off the top of my head: iOS 5, iCloud, and the many new/updated Apple apps related to them; Siri and new camera features specific to the 4S; iTunes 10.5; OS X 10.7.2 and iCloud on the Mac; and that's not even getting into backend stuff to support all that. Apple is arguable facing the biggest, most complex coordinated set of (near-) simultaneous software releases it has ever attempted. It's quite plausible that Siri-on-iPad got bumped from the list of things needed to be included. Hell, even Siri on the 4S is being labelled only as a Beta for the initial release.
please bring back Woz!!
