Rumor: Apple privately testing backport of Siri to iPhone 4

Rumor: Apple privately testing backport of Siri to iPhone 4

New rumors allege that Apple is working to port Siri back to the iPhone 4. Supposedly corroborating earlier rumors, AppAdvice claimed that Apple briefly let staff get a test build of iOS 5 with Siri on the older model that was pulled once the trial was done. The dry run supposedly went "really well," one tip maintained, supporting recent hacked installs that showed the iPhone 4 and fourth-generation iPod touch capable of handling the voice command system....

Click to expand...

Read more

Hope this doesn't happen.
It takes away from buying a new iP4S and if it was released i could buy the cheaper iP4 and be done with it. Will be fail IMHO
Cheers

TattooedMac said:

Hope this doesn't happen.
It takes away from buying a new iP4S and if it was released i could buy the cheaper iP4 and be done with it. Will be fail IMHO
Cheers

Click to expand...

I agree completely!

So what? The company will sell ANYway so many units. Why it has to be 4 or 4s? Why can't we enjoy as well the SIRI services ,as the iP can run this app and we know it. I think that they allow this. This will take Apple much higher for supporting their customers (even with older equipment)

dj_eddie_gr said:

So what? The company will sell ANYway so many units. Why it has to be 4 or 4s? Why can't we enjoy as well the SIRI services ,as the iP can run this app and we know it. I think that they allow this. This will take Apple much higher for supporting their customers (even with older equipment)

Click to expand...

...but it is not a very good marketing tool though is it. The point of delivering 'new features' on new products is to 'force' if that's the correct word, us to buy the new product.

If there is one thing that Apple did/has learn(ed) from SJ, it was marketing. If they trip themselves up so soon after he has gone, then Apple is on a slippery slope.

dj_eddie_gr said:

So what? The company will sell ANYway so many units. Why it has to be 4 or 4s? Why can't we enjoy as well the SIRI services ,as the iP can run this app and we know it. I think that they allow this. This will take Apple much higher for supporting their customers (even with older equipment)

Click to expand...

As mentioned, the only problem is that the iPhone4S was advertised before release with Siri being one of the new main features. They said it themselves that it will only be available on the 4S.

A new product is always better and will sell. SIRI haven't got to do with hardware specs. And think that! why someone go buy a product (4s) that has problems with its battery (as iP4 got problems with its antenna when it was released) just for running Siri? And iP4 will still be on stores for months ,side by side with 4s, as a "cheaper" solution ,like what they did with 3GS ,downgrading it to 8Gb.

Well...

The way I look at it is the people with the iPhone 4, who haven't upgraded to the 4s, will just wait for the iPhone 5.

People who upgraded to the 4s wanted a more capable phone, and that is what they got.

This would make a lot of the iPhone 4 customers very happy (although I'm not sure how the 4s users would feel).

And to think...I was enjoying thumbing my nose at those iPhone 4 users...oh well.

I think the battery thing might end up being much ado about nothing - I disabled the time zone service yesterday, calibrated my battery and have seen a significant increase in battery life. Of course, I only have the blackberry to compare it to - but I only used about 25% all day yesterday as opposed to 70ish% after the change.

The iPhone 4s so called battery issues are NOT the phone but IOS5. That has been proven and Apple is about to release an update for IOS5 to address the issue.

dtravis7 said:

The iPhone 4s so called battery issues are NOT the phone but IOS5. That has been proven and Apple is about to release an update for IOS5 to address the issue.

Click to expand...

Good to hear.

Siri has already been deployed to the iPhone 4 (and 3GS) by the jailbreaking/mod community. For Apple to maintain such an artificial limitation is just silly in my view, especially if the intention is to take a bite out of Google's primary revenue stream.

I wouldn't be surprised if Siri was ported to every Apple device capable of running it by this time next year.

alexsd123 said:

Good to hear.

Click to expand...

I am noticing a bit less battery life on my iPad 1 in face since IOS5. Can't wait to install the update.

Is it iOS 5 only the problem ,or in combination with4s? cause I have 4 and battery still lasts as usual after the update. Another future that is eating up battery though ,is "reminders". If you have set it to alarm in location it uses wifi or 3G to trace you all the time.

I don't know about the rest of you iPhone 4S users...but I didn't buy the iPhone 4S just for Siri. It was just one of the perks that came with the Phone.

I didn't buy the 4s, sticking with the 4 mainly because of contract issues and the same goes for my wife. If it ports ill be pumped, and so will she.

Now, for an objective view. Is it weird for apple to do it? idk.. I'm not a multi-billion corporation.. but it would lead me to ask.. will they do this in the future? With an OSX update?? and then back port it to previous hardware/software models? just hypothetical but still gets me thinking..

Yea i have to agree with Requiem, Siri just seemed like an added bonus. The 4S has a way better camera and also processing speed has increased. This is just like the 3GS and the 3G. I initially thought Siri was an iOS 5 deal which seems more logical in the long run anyway.

Didn't Apple "backport" the wireless n connectivity to "older" MacBook Pros back in the day (2008 maybe)? Seems the previous revision of MBP hardware was capable of running n when it was released, but they released an "enabler" for $1.99 after the new revision MBP hardware had been deployed for sales. It wouldn't shock me if they went that route.

I think Apple wants the Siri technology to become ubiquitous to people - get 'em use to it, love it, talk about it, show off to their buddies, depend upon it, and get it to market everywhere ASAP. You know everyone else is going to follow, improve, innovate, etc on the Siri idea now that it's out in the wild anyhow. Apple thinks further ahead than just what will sell a +/- a few million units of a rather lackluster hardware upgrade to an existing design this fiscal year. They want market share and I doubt they'd object to people buying "used" iPhones and ditching other brands to gain that share, if all they had to do was add Siri to iOS 5.1 or whatever it is called. Getting a standardized software release built reduces time to market, code management and regression testing (ie: production and distribution cost) substantially as well.

TattooedMac said:

Hope this doesn't happen.
It takes away from buying a new iP4S and if it was released i could buy the cheaper iP4 and be done with it. Will be fail IMHO
Cheers

Click to expand...

I disagree

Just don't understand how this could be a bad thing.

I agree that Siri is just an added bonus for ip4s. I have the ip4 and the only two reasons I would like to have had the ip4s is to have a 64gb and for the faster processor.