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Does the iPad 2 have a noise cancelling mic? I bet that could have something to do with it.
 
My guess is that withholding Siri from other devices is a marketing tactic for Apple to sell more iPhone 4S. After the initial wave dies down (end of 2011/early 2012) we will see Siri released for the iPhone 4 and the two iPads. They will claim that due to wanting to bring the best of Apple to other devices they worked hard to bring a solid Siri experience to older technology.

This will allow them to sell their hot product now and please their loyal user base later by providing something they weren't expecting.

Look at it purely from a Sprint POV. A whole bunch of new users are going to be looking to buy an iPhone. Apple will want to steer them towards the iPhone 4S over the 4/3gs. Without Siri the debate between and new 4S or 4 is harder for the non-power user who doesn't need top of the line speed. The camera on the 4 is still excellent. Now however any basic user will want Siri and thus will splurge for the 4S. In 4-6 months most of those users will already have gotten the new phone so Apple can release it to everyone else.
 
Heyyyy, check it out, good old John Gruber himself decided to join the conversation!

WHY IS SIRI LIMITED TO THE IPHONE 4S?

The cynical answer, of course, would be that Apple is withholding it from other iOS devices in order to spur additional upgrades to the iPhone 4S.

A non-cynical answer would be that Siri depends on certain hardware in the iPhone 4S that doesn’t exist on any other iOS device. But what, exactly? The iPad 2 has the same CPU (A5) and same amount of RAM (512 MB), but no Siri, no text dictation. No one at Apple has an answer for this other than to say that Siri was developed alongside and specifically for just one device: the iPhone 4S. And as good as Siri is, I get the impression that Apple is far from satisfied with where it stands today. The Newton was killed by that “egg freckles” stuff — it never recovered from the public perception that its handwriting recognition wasn’t good enough. If Siri is any less accurate on older iOS devices than it is on the 4S, Apple isn’t going to allow it.

Don’t forget that there’s a server/cloud-based backend that is required for Siri to function. I can’t help but suspect there’s some truth to this tweet from Mark Crump, speculating that Apple might be limiting Siri to the 4S simply to restrict the server load while the service is “beta”. There could be 100 million iOS 5 users by the end of this weekend; there will only be 1 or 2 million iPhone 4S users.

Source: http://daringfireball.net/2011/10/iphone_4s

I agree with him that to say that it's for marketing reasons only is the "cynical" answer.
There's more behind it than that.
 
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

I've been saying this all along....

iPhone 4 (or earlier) were never promised Siri. Apple spent a ton of money on Siri + licensing Nuance. They have to get a return on that investment and giving it to those who aren't upgrading means they are losing money (on the licensing of Nuance, Siri was a purchase). It's time to move on folks.
 
I've not read all three pages... but my theory is this:

Siri is in BETA. When you BETA test things, you limit the amount of people using them.

Once Siri graduates from BETA, I think we'll see it on other devices.

EDIT - seems others have mentioned the BETA theory. I'll go sit in the corner.
 
This info from the Siri Team:

The Fourier comb and Markov filter -- essential to turning a stream of words into a tiny handful of contextually-cogent bytes -- runs in one of the two PowerVR GPU cores that is in the newer A5. The 4S has extra links between the GPU output and the baseband chip so that the Siri application has its own dedicated connection to the cloud processing farms (currently, just the one in Philadelphia), piggybacked on the primary stream to and from the cell.

This shows it will only work on the 4S and maybe iPad 2S..
 
Heyyyy, check it out, good old John Gruber himself decided to join the conversation!



Source: http://daringfireball.net/2011/10/iphone_4s

I agree with him that to say that it's for marketing reasons only is the "cynical" answer.
There's more behind it than that.
yeh it's pretty obvious it's a marketing trick. They want you to upgrade if you "WANT IT". Just like with their Macbook Pros, I love my 13 but there's no high-res antiglare sceen option, if you "WANT IT" they make you pay more money for a 15/17" Pro :rolleyes: . Can't blame them, business 101, but damnit I want a high res AG 13" Pro lol.
 
It's a conspiracy I tell you! Ignore what the developers say...they are just paid shills!!!'

Get a life losers....
 
This info from the Siri Team:

The Fourier comb and Markov filter -- essential to turning a stream of words into a tiny handful of contextually-cogent bytes -- runs in one of the two PowerVR GPU cores that is in the newer A5. The 4S has extra links between the GPU output and the baseband chip so that the Siri application has its own dedicated connection to the cloud processing farms (currently, just the one in Philadelphia), piggybacked on the primary stream to and from the cell.

This shows it will only work on the 4S and maybe iPad 2S..

Really, part of Siri's processing is running in the GPU? I find that to be really, really cool.
 
marketing

It's a marketing technique really. You find out its only for the 4s and you want to throw the 4 in the trash and buy that. They want your money. But who's actually stupid enough to get a 4s. yeah if you don't have an iphone already go ahead get it but if you still have the 4 just dont waste your money just for siri and a better camera. I think their technique will fail in some areas, but maybe there will be a cydia app to get it. Then we can shove our iphone 4s in their face and say FU i have Siri!;)
 
Best explanation I've seen for why iPad 2 isn't getting Siri (at least for now):

They don't want too many units stressing their Siri servers all at once. If they roll it out with just the new iPhone, traffic will be much more limited at first than it would be if every iPad 2 owner could suddenly upgrade and start using Siri.

And of course, for those who do get Siri, they are going to be using it a LOT at first because it's so cool. Once people get over the initial excitement, traffic will die down. Then maybe (but no guarantees at all) Apple will add iPad 2 support in an OS update.

As for the older devices, I don't expect to see it.
 
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