Edible Apple

Despite a proof of concept video showing that Siri can in fact run on the iPhone 4, don’t expect Apple to roll out the feature to old iOS devices anytime soon, or ever for that matter.

Michael Steeber recently contacted with a bug report regarding Siri wherein he suggested that Apple could make the feature available for a fee. His message to Apple read:

Bug Title: Special Siri Build of iOS

iPhone 4 Users and iPod touch 4th generation users pay a fee of 19.99 to upgrade to a ‘special’ build of iOS 5.0.1 with Siri Final in it, (To avoid hackers hacking Siri onto non 4S devices illegally) **Many iPhone 4 Users and iPod touch 4th generation Users will pay for this special iOS build (5.0.1) which will enable Siri for a fee of $19.99 US dollars

Apple soon responded:

Engineering has provided the following feedback regarding this issue:
Siri only works on iPhone 4S and we currently have no plans to support older devices.

So there you have it, Siri won’t be coming to the iPhone 4 or the iPad 2. While some have claimed that this is a transparent ploy to encourage folks to upgrade, some have pointed out a limited roll out ensures that Apple can tweak Siri appropriately in the first few months its out since the only pool of users are iPhone 4S users. As for the iPad 2, which can clearly support Siri’s processing needs, some have suggested that the microphone placement on the iPad 2 is not optimal for using Siri. With the iPad 3 scheduled to hit stores in the first quarter of 2012, it’ll be interesting to see if it will come with built-in support for Siri.

via Michael Steeber