Siri — BrandWiki

Siri

Overview

Siri

screenshot	Apple Intelligence Siri (iOS 18.1 Beta 4).png
screenshot size	280px
author	Siri Inc.
developer	Apple
released	October 4, 2011
operating system	iOS 5 onward, macOS Sierra onward, tvOS (all versions), watchOS (all versions), iPadOS (all versions), visionOS (all versions)
platform	iPhone iPad iPod Touch Mac Apple TV Apple Watch HomePod Apple Vision Pro Some third party devices
language	Arabic Chinese: (Cantonese, Mandarin) Danish Dutch English Finnish French German Hebrew Italian Japanese Korean Kannada Telugu Bengali Marathi Malay Norwegian Portuguese Russian Spanish Swedish Thai Hindi Turkish Vietnamese (developer beta)
genre	Intelligent personal assistant
website	apple.com/siri

Siri is a virtual assistant and chatbot purchased, developed, and popularized by Apple, which is included in the iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, Apple TV, audioOS, and visionOS operating systems.[1][2] It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of Internet services. With continued use, it adapts to users' individual language usages, searches, and preferences, returning individualized results.

Siri is a spin-off from a project developed by the SRI International Artificial Intelligence Center. Its speech recognition engine was provided by Nuance Communications, and it uses advanced machine learning technologies to function. Its original American, British, and Australian

Development

Siri is a spin-out from the Stanford Research Institute's Artificial Intelligence Center and is an offshoot of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA)-funded CALO project.[4] SRI International used the NABC Framework to define the value proposition for Siri.[5] It was co-founded by Dag Kittlaus, Tom Gruber, and Adam Cheyer.[4] Kittlaus named Siri after a co-worker in Norway; the name is a short form of the name Sigrid, from Old Norse Sigríðr, composed of the elements sigr "victory" and fríðr "beautiful".[6]

Siri's speech recognition engine was provided by Nuance Communications, a speech technology company.[7] Neither Apple nor Nuance acknowledged this for years,[8][9] until Nuance CEO Paul Ricci confirmed it at a 2013 technology conference.[7] The speech recognition system uses sophisticated machine learning techniques, including convolutional neural networks and long short-term memory.[10]

The initial Siri prototype was implemented using the Active platform, a joint project between the Artificial Intelligence Center of SRI International and the Vrai Group at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. The Active platform was the focus of a Ph.D. thesis led by Didier Guzzoni, who joined Siri as its chief scientist.[11]

Siri was acquired by Apple Inc. in April 2010 under the direction of Steve Jobs.[12] Apple's first notion of a digital personal assistant appeared in a 1987 concept video, Knowledge Navigator.[13][14]

Siri's original release on iPhone 4s in October 2011 received mixed reviews. It received praise for its voice recognition and contextual knowledge of user information, including calendar appointments, but was criticized for requiring stiff user commands and having a lack of flexibility. It was also criticized for lacking information on certain nearby places and for its inability to understand certain English accents. During the mid-2010s, a number of media reports said that Siri lacked innovation, particularly against new competing voice assistants. The reports concerned Siri's limited set of features, "bad" voice recognition, and undeveloped service integrations as causing trouble for Apple in the field of artificial intelligence and cloud-based services; the basis for the complaints reportedly due to stifled development, as caused by Apple's prioritization of user privacy and executive power struggles within the company. Its launch was also overshadowed by the death of Steve Jobs, which occurred one day after the launch.

Integration

Siri released as a stand-alone application for the iOS operating system in February 2010, and at the time, the developers were also intending to release Siri for Android and BlackBerry devices.[28] Two months later, Apple acquired Siri.[29][30][31] On October 4, 2011, Apple introduced the iPhone 4S with a beta version of Siri.[32][33] After the announcement, Apple removed the existing standalone Siri app from App Store. TechCrunch wrote that, though the Siri app supports iPhone 4, its removal from App Store might also have had a financial aspect for the company, in providing an incentive for customers to upgrade devices.[34] Third-party developer Steven Troughton-Smith, however, managed to port Siri to iPhone 4, though without being able to communicate with Apple's servers.[35] A few days later, Troughton-Smith, working with an anonymous person nicknamed "Chpwn", managed to fully hack Siri, enabling its full functionalities on iPhone 4 and iPod Touch devices.[36] Additionally, developers were also able to successfully create and distribute legal ports of Siri to any device capable of running iOS 5, though a proxy server was required for Apple server interaction.[37]

Over the years, Apple has expanded the line of officially supported products, including newer iPhone models,[38] as well as iPad support in June 2012,[39] iPod Touch support in September 2012,[40] Apple TV support, and the stand-alone Siri Remote, in September 2015,[41] Mac and AirPods support in September 2016,[42][43] and HomePod support in February 2018.[44][45]

Third party devices

At the 2021 Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced that it would make Siri voice integration available in third party devices. Devices must be on the same wireless network as a HomePod or HomePod Mini to route requests.[46] In October 2021, the Ecobee SmartThermostat with Voice Control became the first third-party device with built-in Siri control.[47] In 2024, Denon added Siri control to select soundbars and smart speakers.[48]

Reception

Siri received mixed reviews during its beta release as an integrated part of the iPhone 4S in October 2011.

MG Siegler of TechCrunch wrote that Siri was "great," understood much more, but had “no API that any developer can use“.[69] Writing for The New York Times, David Pogue also praised Siri's ability to understand context[70] Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica wrote that Apple's claims of what Siri could do were bold, and the early demos "even bolder", this was still in beta.

While praising its ability to "decipher our casual language" and deliver "very specific and accurate result," sometimes even providing additional information, Cheng noted and criticized its restrictions, particularly when the language moved away from "stiffer commands" into more human interactions. One example included the phrase "Send a text to Jason, Clint, Sam, and Lee saying we're having dinner at Silver Cloud," which Siri interpreted as sending a message to Jason only, containing the text "Clint Sam and Lee saying we're having dinner at Silver Cloud." She also noted a lack of proper editability.[71]

Google's executive chairman and former chief, Eric Schmidt, conceded that Siri could pose a competitive threat to the company's core search business.[72]

Siri was criticized by pro-abortion rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and NARAL Pro-Choice America, after users found that Siri could not provide information about the location of birth control or abortion providers nearby, sometimes directing users to crisis pregnancy centers instead.[73][74][75]

Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Apple, told The New York Times that, “These are not intentional omissions…”.[76] In January 2016, Fast Company reported that, in then-recent months, Siri had begun to confuse the word "abortion" with "adoption", citing "health experts" who stated that the situation had "gotten worse." However, at the time of Fast Company's report, the situation had changed slightly, with Siri offering "a more comprehensive list of Planned Parenthood facilities", although "Adoption clinics continue to pop up, but near the bottom of the list."[77][78]

Siri has also not been well received by some English speakers with distinctive accents, including Scottish[79] and Americans from Boston or the South.[80]

In March 2012, Frank M. Fazio filed a class action lawsuit against Apple on behalf of the people who bought the iPhone 4S and felt misled about the capabilities of Siri, alleging its failure to function as depicted in Apple's Siri commercials. Fazio filed the lawsuit in California and claimed that the iPhone 4S was merely a "more expensive iPhone 4" if Siri fails to function as advertised.[81][82] On July 22, 2013, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in San Francisco dismissed the suit but said the plaintiffs could amend at a later time. The reason given for dismissal was that plaintiffs did not sufficiently document enough misrepresentations by Apple for the trial to proceed.[83]