iMZDL's Spire Siri Proxy

[EvanLugh]

Im sorry but need to jump in here.

For people NOT familiar with the jailbreak community (which is the majority of jailbreakers), these Siri servers are made to sound much more reliable then they are by all of these hosts. They say we don't guarantee 100% uptime, but fail to state that this is an unreliable non-official hack that may not always work. Every online provider of service says less than 100%, but this is less than 75% average overall. Essentially, the hosts are not being transparent to the customer either because they know they will lose subscribers if they engage in full disclosure that is highly unreliable and can go out any day temporarily or permanently.

And I'm sorry but IPs or keys being banned is unacceptable. There are ways around this and obviously IMZDL has not done their proper research into these issues or spoken to other people doing Siri proxy hosting. MOST of keys being banned is too many people using a key and Apple seeing extremely high activity with that key, so that is just irresponsible conduct by the host allowing this to happen without key throttling on their server to prevent that.

Im sorry, but someone charging for service SHOULD engage in full disclosure to its customers as well as do the necessary research to address anticipated issues with the methods. Especially when taking in hundreds of dollars per day if not more, with very little operating cost.

I agree, I think your 'argument' per-se is valid. iMZDL should have been a little clearer, or at least let people know the real problems I.e. what's really happening with keys, overcrowding/over selling. I do have faith in them however, and I hope in the not so distant future, things stabilise, especially for the people who've not had much luck with the server, or at the very least offer a refund

 

[maturola]

You clearly don't get the argument. Then why not say the average number? Because they know this will drive potential customers away. It sounds a lot better how you said it (it's somewhere way less than 100% so its ok just to say not 100%) versus the actual truth right?

It's like the diet pills on those TV commercials. They show the ONE person, the outlier, that lost 150 pounds, and you laugh and say yeah right that product is a scam. How is this different? Just because one or two people claim to have 100% up-time doesn't mean you just disclaim, well we don't claim 100% up-time so it's somewhere south of that number. That's NOT honest business especially from fellow members of the jailbreak community. Tell people how it is. If its average 62%, say it; if it's average 84% say it. Be honest, period. Again, these are fellow members of our jailbreak community, not some big business either. Last time I checked the community was about helping each other not devs' pockets.

There is also no acceptable reason to ban if you know what you are doing. Please do some research and you will see too that there are plenty of ways to, maybe not 100%, but prevent key bans. It does not take much research to figure out how others are using these methods to prevent their keys from getting banned. There are only 2 possible explanations here: either they are overselling their servers due to greed, or have not done their research. And I would bet on the former explanation as the research is quite easy to find and implemented on most servers I've seen (even free ones).

I have personally seen more than a handful of Siri servers without a single key banned, yet somehow IMZDL is having these major issues with Apple. I'm calling, from the evidence, overselling/greed as the reason for key ban excuses and simply having too many people one key. Get more keys/servers, or stop selling and taking people's money, period.

You are the one who doens't seen to understand the nature of the "hack" even Apple had large issues with mobile me when it launch (and so had many other services and companies, At&T with iphone, Verizon, Hulu, etc..i can keep going). Experimental service always will go to this type of issues until they can be stable. The fact that it is not supported by the manufacture make it even difficult, you need to understands that before jumping to it, if you do them you just have to deal with it. Also all the fancy math you are doing doesn't really apply, Siri is a service that is use exporadically by each user, yes every user will hit server several time when it gets it for the first time, but them a heavy user will hit Siri maybe 30 to 50 times at day, the service is not intended to be use every second of the day.

They word of their service got around too fast for their own good, yes, but that is not to say that they are scammers or they are not doing the right thing. On my very particular experienced, with 2 phones and 1 iPad running on their servers one 1 time i had tried to used it and it had failed, I know since i follow them on twitter that the service is out, but it is not really affecting me since at that point I dont need to ask SIri anything.

The point being is that they clearly said..that they were not monitoring the server all the time and that due to the unofficial nature the of the hack service could go down anytime. If you decided to buy into to you should had been well aware of that, if you wanted more than 85% uptime go get an 4S (which by the way doesn't even get 100% either, even Apple server go down specially they did during the first week of service just like the unofficial are doing now)

 

[stulaw11]

Here are some other observations (Siri servers in general)

Normally there is no excuse for downtime, period. Yes, will have periods of a few minutes while keys throttle down to reduce the load, but out of 24 hours a few minutes here and there is still pretty good uptime.

Normally, lets say your server has 10 keys. Comfortably, you can host 150 people with 10 keys (15 people per key). Now lets say you add 10 people to 160, one or two of those keys will throttle itself, or prevent use, for a few minutes until the load drops on it, and then allow connections again. This prevents Apple from seeing high use from any one key. If the server is set up correctly, keys will throttle and Apple will likely never see the high usage to ban keys. This will also lead to relatively low downtime; only for a period of 2 of a few minutes over 24 hours.

Now here is where the problems come in. Hosts are overselling their servers which is causing keys to be overloaded and banned, or constantly throttled causing people not to be able to connect at all. Both of these issues are the host's fault, and are highly control able.

The other major issue I see is hosts are offering say 5 servers to customers. You have access to any of those 5 servers, you choose. This is an issue. Again lets use the example 10 keys per server, or 150 users. Even if you DO NOT oversell your slots, this setup becomes a problem. You do not control who is connecting to what server.

For example, lets say server 1 has 175 people trying to connect, server 2 has 160, server 3 has 170, server 4 100, and server 5 145. See the issue? People trying to connect to 1, 2, and 3 cannot, while people on 4 and 5 say are saying what's the problem mine is working just fine. Now do these calculations every minute over 24 hours as people flip-flop servers and you see the problem. At some point people will report issues connecting, and very unlikely probability people will be evenly spread across there servers where everyone can connect at the same time.

Having alternative servers if one goes down is a good idea in theory but bad in practice. You can't control how many users are on each one, thus causing connection issues for people. I just don't find this "free for all" method a very appealing way to run this type of service

Keys being available should also be a non-issue. It takes your donaters about 5 seconds of their life at a designated time of day to hit the mic button and send their 4S data. If you do not have a reliable source of keys to feed each server you have, you are being irresponsible to your customers.

 

[stulaw11]

You are the one who doens't seen to understand the nature of the "hack" even Apple had large issues with mobile me when it launch (and so had many other services and companies, At&T with iphone, Verizon, Hulu, etc..i can keep going). Experimental service always will go to this type of issues until they can be stable. The fact that it is not supported by the manufacture make it even difficult, you need to understands that before jumping to it, if you do them you just have to deal with it. Also all the fancy math you are doing doesn't really apply, Siri is a service that is use exporadically by each user, yes every user will hit server several time when it gets it for the first time, but them a heavy user will hit Siri maybe 30 to 50 times at day, the service is not intended to be use every second of the day.

They word of their service got around too fast for their own good, yes, but that is not to say that they are scammers or they are not doing the right thing. On my very particular experienced, with 2 phones and 1 iPad running on their servers one 1 time i had tried to used it and it had failed, I know since i follow them on twitter that the service is out, but it is not really affecting me since at that point I dont need to ask SIri anything.

The point being is that they clearly said..that they were not monitoring the server all the time and that due to the unofficial nature the of the hack service could go down anytime. If you decided to buy into to you should had been well aware of that, if you wanted more than 85% uptime go get an 4S (which by the way doesn't even get 100% either, even Apple server go down specially they did during the first week of service just like the unofficial are doing now)

Read the above post, I clearly understand the nature of this hack more than most. BTW I am not using IMZDL's servers but another host's as I find him honest and reliable.

This has little to nothing to do with how many times each person hits the server, unless you do it over 100 times a session (each time you open Siri) or something crazy in volume which causes key throttling. That is a "per session" limitation, not a per key limitation. Your key is valid for 24 hours that you are sent once you get connected to the server.

You can keep claiming experimental service (which this has never been described to be by any host), but then these hosts shouldn't even be profiting off it more than the costs of the servers until it is working properly and fully. These hosting costs are tiny compared to the profits being made a $20 a pop; and even people are hosting free servers with 6-7 keys/150 people perfectly fine without anyone paying a cent. So clearly there is a line between tinkering with the community to learn with an "experimental service", and greed.

People bought this service instead of an iphone 4S. No one is saying it will work undoubtedly 100% every time you hit the button, but people are seeing HOURS if not DAYS of downtime, if they are even able to connect at all. There is something wrong there as I've seen other servers (over 5), even free ones, personally at action and have none of these large of issues outside some small downtime for server maintenance or a few minutes for key throttling.

 

[maturola]

Read the above post, I clearly understand the nature of this hack more than most. BTW I am not using IMZDL's servers but another host's as I find him honest and reliable.

I use IMZDL's servers and I find them very honest and Reliable

You can keep claiming experimental service, but then these hosts shouldn't even be profiting off it more than the costs of the servers.

I guess you were on the phone and at Cupertino complaining (annoying) them when official SIRI was out of service at release.

in any case if you are NOT using the service please avoid complaining about it.

I also forgot the service does not need to be describe as experimental, you have to know it is, the fact that required "unofficial" code to be running and Root access to the device should give you a good clue.

 

[Asator]

Is this service really only beneficial to those who live in the US to use location services to search for restaurants etc?

I'm in Australia, so would this still work for me?

 

[wratran]

You're not an attorney. First off, no DA would accept a case like this. Not worth the trouble or effort. Second, no real attorney would display 5th grade grammar.

I have had 1st gradeeee gramma...are you happieddd

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There are lot of imzdl people here...just to make them look half way decent
Maturola is one of them....try to defend them without fact

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Im sorry but need to jump in here.

For people NOT familiar with the jailbreak community (which is the majority of jailbreakers), these Siri servers are made to sound much more reliable then they are by all of these hosts. They say we don't guarantee 100% uptime, but fail to state that this is an unreliable non-official hack that may not always work. Every online provider of service says less than 100%, but this is less than 75% average overall. Essentially, the hosts are not being transparent to the customer either because they know they will lose subscribers if they engage in full disclosure that is highly unreliable and can go out any day temporarily or permanently.

And I'm sorry but IPs or keys being banned is unacceptable. There are ways around this and obviously IMZDL has not done their proper research into these issues or spoken to other people doing Siri proxy hosting. MOST of keys being banned is too many people using a key and Apple seeing extremely high activity with that key, so that is just irresponsible conduct by the host allowing this to happen without key throttling on their server to prevent that.

Im sorry, but someone charging for service SHOULD engage in full disclosure to its customers as well as do the necessary research to address anticipated issues with the methods. Especially when taking in hundreds of dollars per day if not more, with very little operating cost.

Lack of full disclosure is a SCAM!

 

[robdam1001]

So strange. Mine has worked 100% perfectly fine since I first signed up for this service ~ 1 week ago. I don't get it.

 

[Enjoylife1788]

So strange. Mine has worked 100% perfectly fine since I first signed up for this service ~ 1 week ago. I don't get it.

Trust me buddy u will face the issue. I don't wish u do but.

I had signed up a week and half back. Worked like a charm for 4 days and then since 5 days, not even once.. So it's just random and have no clue on what factors do these work on..

 

[EvanLugh]

He's in time out, now for sensible posts

I'm actually surprised mine is still working, seems so many of you have problems

 

[Chic0]

5th day and mine is still working

 

[maturola]

I have had 1st gradeeee gramma...are you happieddd

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There are lot of imzdl people here...just to make them look half way decent
Maturola is one of them....try to defend them without fact

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Lack of full disclosure is a SCAM!

LOl I am not a "imzdl people" I got no association with them other than using their service, my goal is not defend them, it is to be clear and fair about what they do, i expend a lot of time on this forum and i've been here for a while, I like to keep uninformed post and threat to a minimum, calling their service a scam is just no true. and by the way, the disclosure is there, you just have to know how to read before signing up for a service.

 

[4sFanatic]

Let me get this straight ..................
Guys are Jail Breaking Apple's device so they can steal Siri from Apple using an unofficial hacking service, and when that service goes down, it's a scam?

I'm amazed at some of the stuff I read on this site, (file a complaint with the DA)

 

[adnbek]

They've set up a server status page here:

http://siri.imzdl.com/?page=server-status

According to the page, they haven't "oversold" key slots (although I would love to know what criteria they've used, 15 slots per key? 30 slots? 100 slots?) and on their Twitter they did state that they do use key throttling when too many requests are made with the same key.

And uptimes of about 98-99% doesn't seem so bad me thinks... Of course, who knows how accurate this is.

 

[bmwhd]

iMZDL's solution has been working now for me 100% of the time since they re-enabled it on Tuesday.

 

[stulaw11]

They've set up a server status page here:

http://siri.imzdl.com/?page=server-status

According to the page, they haven't "oversold" key slots (although I would love to know what criteria they've used, 15 slots per key? 30 slots? 100 slots?) and on their Twitter they did state that they do use key throttling when too many requests are made with the same key.

And uptimes of about 98-99% doesn't seem so bad me thinks... Of course, who knows how accurate this is.

Those numbers would not show overselling of keys or really anything that useful. All that shows is the servers' uptime physically themselves, connected to the internet and running, which anyone would hope is 98-99% or above.

The real issue is still if they have those 13-14 keys there (believe they had 14 a few min ago, one must've just expired at its 24 hours), at say 15 users per key (should really not be using more than 15 people per key), then did they sell more than 210 slots max (which one could speculate they may have). If so, then you will have people who can't connect regardless of the physical server uptime, as well as keys being banned if the "max connections per key" value is high as I discussed in prior my prior.

One could presume that they have sold more than 210 slots total, and that their max connections per key value is probably higher than 15 with only 13-14 keys total at one time to accommodate more total users. This could cause the key ban issues they are seeing and people not being able to connect when the key is overloaded from use. It seems like 15 connections per key is the "standard" on most servers I've seen.

As I said in prior posts, its a little irresponsible to stretch keys to make more money IMO; say setting your "max connections per key" value on your server at 30, thus being able to take 30x14= 420 people instead of 210. That's an extra 4 grand in the host's pocket stretching the keys at $20 a pop. I HOPE this is not a case of key stretching for greed.

There are 2 components working here, the server itself being up, and the keys being free to access. I never had any suspicions the servers themselves had a lot of downttime per say.

Just some info, as again, I have no stake in any of this but want people informed of the real hard facts and truths to these proxies when choosing one and how they operate and function.

 

[scirica]

So am I reading this right? Use the Cydia App Spire, sign up for this proxy service (do necessary install/token/whatever) and I have a functioning Siri on iPhone 4?

 

[adnbek]

Those numbers would not show overselling of keys or really anything that useful. All that shows is the servers' uptime physically themselves, connected to the internet and running, which anyone would hope is 98-99% or above.

The real issue is still if they have those 13-14 keys there (believe they had 14 a few min ago, one must've just expired at its 24 hours), at say 15 users per key (should really not be using more than 15 people per key), then did they sell more than 210 slots max (which one could speculate they may have). If so, then you will have people who can't connect regardless of the physical server uptime, as well as keys being banned if the "max connections per key" value is high as I discussed in prior my prior.

One could presume that they have sold more than 210 slots total, and that their max connections per key value is probably higher than 15 with only 13-14 keys total at one time to accommodate more total users. This could cause the key ban issues they are seeing and people not being able to connect when the key is overloaded from use. It seems like 15 connections per key is the "standard" on most servers I've seen.

As I said in prior posts, its a little irresponsible to stretch keys to make more money IMO; say setting your "max connections per key" value on your server at 30, thus being able to take 30x14= 420 people instead of 210. That's an extra 4 grand in the host's pocket stretching the keys at $20 a pop. I HOPE this is not a case of key stretching for greed.

There are 2 components working here, the server itself being up, and the keys being free to access. I never had any suspicions the servers themselves had a lot of downttime per say.

Just some info, as again, I have no stake in any of this but want people informed of the real hard facts and truths to these proxies when choosing one and how they operate and function.

Scroll to the bottom of the page. It also shows "Key load". According to that chart, they haven't oversold the keys.
However, the question is what criteria they are using to determine this. In other words, how many connections per key is point of reference?

 

[NutsNGum]

So am I reading this right? Use the Cydia App Spire, sign up for this proxy service (do necessary install/token/whatever) and I have a functioning Siri on iPhone 4?

Yessir.

 

[scirica]

Okay...I bought Spire, installed it, installed certificates (all 4), then set up the proxy URL. When I hold the home button, I still get the Voice Control app, but I'm assuming I should get the Virtual Assistant app, right?

Following the above I "re-ran" the latest Redsn0w over my jailbreak based on what I read on the previous posts. I also re-installed Spire.

Still get Voice Control. What did I miss?

Thanks team!

[Blushing egg on face...turn Siri on Dummy!!! ]

 

[robdam1001]

Okay...I bought Spire, installed it, installed certificates (all 4), then set up the proxy URL. When I hold the home button, I still get the Voice Control app, but I'm assuming I should get the Virtual Assistant app, right?

Following the above I "re-ran" the latest Redsn0w over my jailbreak based on what I read on the previous posts. I also re-installed Spire.

Still get Voice Control. What did I miss?

Thanks team!

[Blushing egg on face...turn Siri on Dummy!!! ]

you should just see the microphone appear at the bottom of your screen. there's not an app icon.

http://cdn.jaxov.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Siri-iPhone-4S-Assistant.jpg

 

[Chic0]

Okay...I bought Spire, installed it, installed certificates (all 4), then set up the proxy URL. When I hold the home button, I still get the Voice Control app, but I'm assuming I should get the Virtual Assistant app, right?

Following the above I "re-ran" the latest Redsn0w over my jailbreak based on what I read on the previous posts. I also re-installed Spire.

Still get Voice Control. What did I miss?

Thanks team!

[Blushing egg on face...turn Siri on Dummy!!! ]

Have you activated Siri by going to Settings > General > Siri ?

 

[SegRat]

Count me as another user that is now having 0 issues using Siri. Before there last update, I would say it was working 80% of the time. After the last update it has worked 100% of the time.

 

[nickrinaldi]

just got it today, so far working great for me, only downside is spire seems to use up a bit more of my phones memory, but havent noticed any actual lag using it.

 

[NanoNyrd]

So am I reading this right? Use the Cydia App Spire, sign up for this proxy service (do necessary install/token/whatever) and I have a functioning Siri on iPhone 4?

Except that the "installing Spire" part may be tricky. Mine got stuck in "Setting up shared cache" after downloading and installing the Siri files. It never got past that part. Finally, I aborted the install, tried again with same result. I suspect some kind of interaction with another tweak (I have too many), so I have restored and rejailbroken the phone. Again it stops at this point.

Any clues?