[dstein]

What really bothers me about Siri, is how Apple makes it tied to specific hardware. Technologically, there should be no reason why Siri-style actions are not available to every PC, and every smartphone.

Native platforms have been, and still are (thanks to Apple's success), the major roadblock to innovation.

[jodrellblank]

When Microsoft put speech recognition in XP, were you complaining? When Nuance made Dragon dictate? When Kurzweil made Voicepad Pro? When Google made the Android only Voice offering? Were you complaining they had hardware requirements or were platform or OS specific? But now Apple buy and release it in a way people like, easily a decade after this kind of technology was first commercially and suddenly that's why nobody else has innovated?

And your complaint isn't even accurate aside from that - DARPA funded SRI for military purposes, SRI finished their military contract and reformed to a commercial company and Apple bought them (I.e. innovation happenings) and in an interview with the company founder he said they had to struggle to get it to run on the 3GS and implied it would be much better on better hardware. Speculation is that it does voice recognition on the client (I.e. There are plausible technical reasons why not every smartphone could run the current implementation).

Having to differentiate their native platform drives innovation, its having to support the lowest common denominator and backwards compatibility which stifles it, and patents which roadblock it.

[dstein]

My Macbook Pro should be powerful enough to run the Siri software. But Apple doesn't let me use it because they only put it on a particular, expensive, smartphone.

Your comparison isn't valid.

[X-Istence]

Siri's servers were falling over just handling the people who had 4S devices in their hands, imagine unleashing all iPhone 4 and iPad 2 owners on their servers as well at the same time...

So far Apple has not come out and said that Siri will not be available on older devices (such as the iPhone 4 and iPad 2). I honestly believe that Siri is very much still considered a beta product by Apple and they are attempting to figure out how to make it scale on the backend.

[iaskwhy]

Wouldn't it be a blow to 4S buyers if they release it for older versions of the iPhone?

[X-Istence]

I bought the iPhone 4S, upgraded from an iPhone 3G and I would be more than happy for more users to get Siri because it is absolutely fantastic. I would love to get it on my iPad 2 as well for example. If more people have Siri and use it, it will most likely improve faster, we will hopefully get API's to program against, and it will get better and better at understanding or processing commands.

I don't see how it would be a blow for iPhone 4S owners ... they got early access. The iPhone 4S pretty much stands on its own, the dual-core processor definitely helps, and the increased speed in graphics makes games and apps look absolutely fantastic.

[iaskwhy]

Well, the selling point is definitely Siri, the only commercial Apple made for iPhone 4S is all about it. That's why I think it could be a blow.

[ceejayoz]

No more than it's a blow to me when the movie I paid $10 in theaters for winds up in Redbox for $1. If your enjoyment of a device is predicated on its features not being available to others, you're in for a world of disappointment.

[iaskwhy]

How did you read that on my words? That's not even a good comparison. A better comparison was when the original iPhone got its price reduced by $200. It was a blow and Apple acted accordingly. If Siri were to be available tomorrow for iOS 5 devices when most people didn't even get their iPhone 4S I would expect it to be a blow to a good part of the early buyers.