Why you will not get Siri on your iPhone 4 or iPad 2

A few websites are reporting that Apple is testing Siri on an iPhone 4 and might be planning on bringing it to the iPhone 4. There is no question that Apple has tested Siri on multiple iOS devices including the iPad 2 and iPod touch, but that does not mean Apple will release Siri for those devices.

Siri has been demonstrated to work on an iPhone 4 and provides a similar experience as the iPhone 4S (see the video below.) There are no technical reasons why Siri would not work the iPad 2 but don’t expect to Siri on an iPad until the release of the iPad 3.

The main reason people are buying the iPhone 4S is because of Siri. If Apple was to make Siri available on the iPhone 4 it would certainly cut in to iPhone 4S sales. A similar thing happened when Apple released the iPhone 3GS with the ability to record video and Apple never included video recording for the iPhone 3G, even though jailbreak apps showed it worked fine.

There are other reasons to keep Siri as an iPhone 4S exclusive right now. Siri is new technology that is still in beta testing, by only making it available on the iPhone 4S gives Apple much smaller group people than if they were to open it up to the several million iPhone 4 and iPad 2 users.

Apple has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to buy and develop Siri, and issuing it as a free upgrade does no seem like a logical move for Apple.

Look for Siri on the iPad 3 but don’t expect to see it on the iPhone 4 or iPad 2 unless there is a hacker that finds a way for to make Siri work via a jailbreak app.

The video shows a demonstration but there is still not a method available to the public to enable Siri on any device other than the iPhone 4S and there may not ever be due to legal reasons.

Originally posted 2011-11-07 19:51:53.