Rare direct reply to user on possibility

Despite rumors that Apple was testing its voice-activated search and task managing feature Siri to make it available for the iPhone 4, a user who filed a "bug report" suggesting that Apple offer Siri on older iOS devices for a fee got a reply back from the company stating that "we currently have no plans to support older devices," reports Cult of Mac contributor Michael Steeber.

Steeber passed on the report of a user who suggested that Apple produce a "special" build of Siri for the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4th generation, both of which have been demonstrated to be capable of running Siri in a fully-functional manner (if not as quite as quickly as the iPhone 4S). The user suggested that Apple could charge a fee for owners to gain the capability (he suggested $20), and also promoted the idea as a way to reduce the allure of "hacking" Siri illegally onto older devices.

The reply, which came from Apple's Engineering department, reiterated the company line that Siri works only with the iPhone 4S. While the denial does not completely rule out the possibility (note the use of the word "currently"), Apple rarely offers to retrofit features onto older equipment, particularly when a given feature becomes a major selling point as Siri has.

There is also the possibility that Siri utilizes some technology unique to the iPhone 4S in order to work as well as it does, not to mention the amount of processing power it requires. The company is notorious for wanting user experience to be reliably excellent, something it might not be able to deliver if the dozens of millions of iPhone 4s and iPod Touch fourth-generation machines were to be added to the demand for Siri services.

Still, under its former CEO Steve Jobs, Apple was once notorious for downplaying the importance of given features -- even denying any plans to add them -- before eventually bringing out products that had the features, such as video on the iPod or indeed the whole idea of a Apple-branded tablet. In this case, however, it seems likely that the iPhone 4 and fourth-generation iPod Touch are seen internally at Apple as near "end-of-life" products and thus would be unlikely to receive a retro-fitted Siri, particularly if a newer iPod Touch is in active development.

A more likely option is that a third-party company would start up a similar service that could run on older iOS devices -- as well as open up the potential for Android compatibility. Some contenders already exist but are seen as far more limited than Siri. Apple's Siri is still in beta (and not without glitches) but the final form is much more apt to appear on future products than any current or older ones. [via Source]

by MacNN Staff