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Who cares about the iPad, I want Siri on the iPhone 4

If Apple doesn't promote Siri, it's doing her an extreme disservice. Apple needs to bring Siri to the iPad -- but more importantly to the iPhone 4 -- if it expects to gain marketshare.
Written by Jason D. O'Grady, Contributor

9to5Mac is reporting that Siri may be coming to the iPad. Yippee.

Tipster Sonny Dickson noticed an apparent Apple oversight when he discovered the Siri Dictation legal boilerplate in Settings > General >  About while running iOS 5.1b3 on an iPad. To date Apple has kept Siri exclusive to the iPhone 4S (announced October 10, 2011).

Since the iPad 2 uses the same A5 processor as the iPhone 4S it should be trivial to make Siri work on the iPad 2. In fact, I'm surprised it's taken this long.

If Siri comes out for the iPad 2, then can the iPhone 4 (no "S") be far behind?

Let's be honest here, the iPhone 4 and its A4 processor should be more than capable of running Siri. Don't forget that Siri used to run on the iPhone 4, and jailbreakers are inching ever closer to porting Siri to the iPhone 4.

So why is Apple stonewalling? To protect its precious iPhone 4S sales -- or so it thinks.

Apple's artificially obsoleting the iPhone 4 based on flawed logic. Apple thinks that it's protecting its bottom line by restricting Siri to the iPhone 4S when its actually burning good will from loyal customers that bought the iPhone 4 and can't run Siri.

There are many reasons why Apple should release Siri for the iPhone 4:

  • There are signs that iPhone 4S sales have plateaued.
  • Google's Voice Actions for Android doesn't discriminate. It's available on all Android devices shipped after August 2010.
  • Siri running on an iPhone 4 isn't going to cannibalize sales of a new iPhone 4S.
  • People buy new iPhones when they: a) break/lose them, or b) swap carriers.
  • Even the earliest iPhone 4 customers aren't yet eligible for a 4S upgrade until June 2012.
  • To push Siri technology further into the community and gain marketshare.

If Apple doesn't promote Siri, it's doing her an extreme disservice. Apple needs to bring Siri to the iPad, and any iPhone it will run on in order to gain traction and acceptance with users. It would be a shame if Siri were left to relative obscurity, like FaceTime.

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