His name is Norman Winarsky. Full story here:
Why Assistant Needs an A5 and How it Was 'Many Iterations' Ahead of its Competitors
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WHY is Siri exclusive to the iPhone 4S?
- Thread starter illjazz
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His name is Norman Winarsky. Full story here:
Why Assistant Needs an A5 and How it Was 'Many Iterations' Ahead of its Competitors
If you look at the benchmarks of the iP4S vs. the iP4, it's perfectly obvious that the iteration of Siri that's integrated into iOS 5 would seriously bog down the iP4, worse than iOS 4.0 on an iPhone 3G.
1-battery power
2-no point having it with the 4 otherwise people will ask whats the point in upgrading?
2-no point having it with the 4 otherwise people will ask whats the point in upgrading?
They actually said "more languages and more features to come." They were pretty vague on what 'more features' meant.
illjazz, they have done this in the past. Notably with iPhone 1. The only difference between the iPhone original and the iPhone 3G was the inclusion of the 3G chip. Meaning, that I completely understand that the original iPhone did not have 3G and did not have GPS. That's fine. But then, they also made it so that you could not send MMS from your original iPhone. Now, sending an MMS, is nothing ridiculous. However, they disabled it from the original iPhone even though time and time again, the jailbreakers got it to work.
So they have done this in the past.
That being said, I did go from iPhone OG -> iPhone 3G -> iPhone 3GS -> iPhone 4S. The only reason I skipped out on 4 was cause they tried to charge me $700 for it.
With the amount of money Apple is paying him I'm sure he will say whatever they want him to say.
It is possible they had more of a reason to disable MMS in the original iPhone. A jailbreak tool was available that added that functionality, but It totally killed the battery, and each MMS took the battery life down almost 5%. Not sure how much better native support from Apple would work.
I have no doubt that Siri could run on an iPhone 4, but I'm guessing that at least part of it was that it simply ran much more smoothly on the iPhone 4S's faster processor. User experience is paramount to these guys.
I don't doubt that Apple was looking for a feature that would make the iPhone 4S stand out. It's obviously possible to get something like Siri running on the iPhone 4 and iPad, just look at the Siri standalone application for evidence!
That said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Siri experience wasn't assisted significantly by additional hardware. Apple did talk about a new DSP being used to enable face detection when using the camera, and there are certainly APIs for doing signal processing that can offload to specialized processors. If I was designing Siri I'd try to "pre digest" what the user says with some local analysis to reduce the amount it needs to send to the cloud and reduce the workload on the server side as well.
That said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Siri experience wasn't assisted significantly by additional hardware. Apple did talk about a new DSP being used to enable face detection when using the camera, and there are certainly APIs for doing signal processing that can offload to specialized processors. If I was designing Siri I'd try to "pre digest" what the user says with some local analysis to reduce the amount it needs to send to the cloud and reduce the workload on the server side as well.
I just got off the phone with Apple and have confirmed that those of us with an iPhone 4 can in fact run Siiri, but there are a few hoops to jump through. Depending on how much memory want, you just need to pay Apple $199, $299, or $399, sign a new contract, and they will throw in a free upgraded camera and processor along with the Siri.
Well I suppose it depends on one's perspective. I think the upgraded video and camera is the iPhone 4Ss best feature. It has the potential to turn the iPhone from a camera of convenience to a main camera thereby eliminating the need to ever buy another pocket camera or camcorder.
Siri is cool but I'm still waiting to see if it's a "killer feature". Socially it has limitations because one would look like a total douche barking commands into a phone in public, and that in itself limits Siri's usefulness.
But as to why Siri is iPhone 4S only I can't say. Why was the Compass iPhone 3GS only at the time, and who would upgrade just for a compass? I did upgrade to the 3GS but only because I skipped the 3G and was ready for a new phone. I suspect most 4S buyers are upgrading from non-iPhones or 3Gs or 3GSs, not from 4s.
Nobody would be ripping off code. The difference would be someone enabling it just like they enabled multitasking on the 3g
That pretty much confirms what I said in the thread-starting post. Siri's exclusivity is due to the high performance requirements of the feature. To me, that makes sense.
It's clearly a marketing decision. The processor argument doesn't hold up; all of the processor-intensive work is being done server-side.
Apple needed to differentiate the 4S with more than just a processor/graphics speed bump, and Siri was the answer.
From a business standpoint, I understand the decision, but as an iPhone 4 owner, I'm not happy about it.
Apple needed to differentiate the 4S with more than just a processor/graphics speed bump, and Siri was the answer.
From a business standpoint, I understand the decision, but as an iPhone 4 owner, I'm not happy about it.
the simplest explanation I have heard goes something like this:
when you bought the iPhone 4, you didn't do it anticipating Siri. Apple does not "owe" you Siri (this comes out as admonishment, I know, but bear with me)...Apple spent money buying Siri, they spent money developing it, etc. Giving it to you for free won't earn them anything for that investment. Using it as a "ploy" to sell new hardware will allow them to recoup their expenditure
when you bought the iPhone 4, you didn't do it anticipating Siri. Apple does not "owe" you Siri (this comes out as admonishment, I know, but bear with me)...Apple spent money buying Siri, they spent money developing it, etc. Giving it to you for free won't earn them anything for that investment. Using it as a "ploy" to sell new hardware will allow them to recoup their expenditure
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Why does everyone think that Siri would be released for the iPad? In several years from now, maybe. But Siri requires the use of an Internet connection and the iPad doesn't always have one. Maybe they will release this feature on the iPad 3G version only but apple is the company that thinks about user experience, and Siri on an iPad would not be a great one.
Why does everyone think that Siri would be released for the iPad? In several years from now, maybe. But Siri requires the use of an Internet connection and the iPad doesn't always have one. Maybe they will release this feature on the iPad 3G version only but apple is the company that thinks about user experience, and Siri on an iPad would not be a great one.
I bet it is marketing but at the same time I do not see the jailbreakers getting around it because it has to be uploaded to Apple's servers and Apple can just as easily block it there. There is no way around that little bit and I easily see Apple doing it for the marketing reasons.
"Massively" faster? I don't think so. "Snappier" is more like it. Remember the 4S is SLOWER than the iPad 2, which is fast, but not MASSIVELY faster.
Also, its unlikely you'll see many A5 required apps. Even when the 3GS came out, 99% of the apps released afterwards worked on both 3G and 3GS. They loaded quicker on the 3GS, but thats about it. I expect the same with the 4S. You'll get a couple 4S only apps (i.e. Infinity Blade 2), and the rest will just load a bit quicker.
The A5 is attractive to developers who crave power (many of them), but the larger market of iP4, 3GS and iPod Touch owners is attractive for developers who crave money (all of them). Which do you think will get the apps?
There's a reason why most of the reviewers are suggesting iP4 owners don't upgrade. It won't be worth it for them. They're not gaining a whole lot for their money, whether it be $200 or $700.
