Siri (Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface) (pronounced /ˈsɪri/) is an intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator which works as an application for Apple’s iOS. The application uses a natural language user interface to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of web services. Apple claims that the software adapts to the user’s individual preferences over time and personalizes results, and performing tasks such as finding recommendations for nearby restaurants, or getting directions.
Siri was originally introduced as an iOS application available in the App Store by Siri Inc. Siri Inc. was acquired by Apple on April 28, 2010. Siri Inc. had announced that their software would be available for BlackBerry and for Android-powered phones, but all development efforts for non-Apple platforms were cancelled after the acquisition by Apple.
Siri is now an integral part of iOS 5, and available only on the iPhone 4S, launched on October 4, 2011.Despite this, hackers were able to adapt Siri in prior iPhones. On November 8, 2011, Apple publicly announced that it had no plans to support Siri on any of its older devices.
The Siri software is deeply embedded throughout iOS that it is able to interact with a number of native applications, offering an enhanced user experience. One of the main gripes from a consumer point of view is that Siri is only officially made available by Apple for those who purchase an iPhone 4S. At first glance, it would seem that Siri required the more powerful processing power of the A5 processor, but considering Siri has been made available on older generation devices by the jailbreak community and seems to function without issue, that assumption would seem to be negated.
Probably the most popular option for older generation Siri access is the Spire tweak from Cydia, developed by Grant Paul who is better known for his Zephyr and Infini series of extensions for jailbroken devices. The issue with Spire is that it only provides the Siri GUI, and relies 100% on a functioning proxy server and data from a registered iPhone 4S to operate, which is something that has been difficult to come by due to Apple shutting down the access provided by certain 4S devices as it is generating thousands of requests.
A team known as i4Siri has been working for quite some time in an attempt to bring a functioning and reliable answer to this problem, and looking at their most recent blog post, it seems that they believe they have the solution, making the i4Siri servers available to the public, and it does not require you to have a registered iPhone 4S. After months of data analysis, testing and modifying based on findings, the servers are now believed to be stable and are being offered to the masses for free. Limitations on the API access will be placed, but the team are planning on adding extensive management tools which let users see things like usage stats, most used sayings and a number of other advanced options.
If you have an older generation device, and are interested in trying out the i4Siri server, then check out the simple steps listed below:
Note: You will obviously need to jailbreak your device to install this tweak. For jailbreaking the latest iOS 5.1 (tethered), follow the instructions posted here to jailbreak using Redsn0w. For jailbreaking iPhone 4S and iPad 2, you can simply follow our step by step tutorial posted here to jailbreak iOS 5.0.1 using Absinthe on Windows or Mac. Those of you with an iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad 1, and iPod touches can use Redsn0w or Sn0wbreeze to untether jailbreak on iOS 5.0.1.
Step 1: Open up Cydia and install the ‘Spire‘ tweak, developed by chpwn.
Step 2: After installation, open up the device Settings application and head to ‘General >> Siri‘ and make sure the toggle is set to ‘On‘.
Step 3: Head back to the root of the Settings menu and select ‘Spire‘.
Step 4: In the Spire settings menu, populate the proxy URL field with‘https://i4sirifree.mooo.com/’.
Step 5: Open up Mobile Safari and head to ‘http://i4siri.com/installcertificate.html‘
Step 6: Install the certificate. Activate Siri and make a request.