Why Siri for iPhone 4S is Revolutionary and How Apple Didn’t Invent It

Below (Video #2) is the video for the iPhone 4s which is being released this Friday.  There are some cool additions to the iPhone 4s including: The dual-core A5 chip, 8MP camera with all-new optics also shoots 1080p HD video, iCloud, Retina Display and the highly anticipated voice recognition personal assistant Siri.

Siri is actually ridiculously amazing and is the feature that I’m anticipating the most, the unusual thing is that this feature has been around the App store for some time now.  Yes Siri was a start-up company that featured a voice recognition, personal assistant app. The app quickly gained notoriety and the rest is a part of Apple history.

Apple Inc. acquired Siri Inc. just a few months after the start-up’s voice-activated personal-assistant program launched in the App Store.  Apple’s purchase was originally confirmed Robert Scoble aka “Scobleizer” who theorized that the Cupertino, Calif., company might have paid about $200 million to purchase Siri. Previously, Scoble had declared that Siri was “the future of the Web.”  You can check out Siri’s original promo video in (Video #1) below, pretty similar to Apple’s, however Apple’s is better.  Great companies move things from good to great.

If you can’t invent it — buy it.  I remember reading this old Steve Jobs quote that may speak to Apple’s purchase of Siri. Jobs said this, “We’ve demonstrated a strong track record of being very disciplined with the use of our cash. We don’t let it burn a hole in our pocket, we don’t allow it to motivate us to do stupid acquisitions. And so I think that we’d like to continue to keep our powder dry, because we do feel that there are one or more strategic opportunities in the future.”  With the iPhone 4s having record pre-sales, many due to Siri — I guess you could say that Siri is one of those strategic opportunities for the future.

Oh and if you were one of the lucky folks to have previously downloaded Siri, enjoy it while it lasts.  You only have a couple of more days to enjoy it.  It has been removed from the App Store and will be removed from all non iPhone 4s devices on October 15th.  Existing Siri Customers are receiving messages like the one shown below in (Image 1).

The Legend of Steve Jobs.  They should change the Siri female voice to Steve Jobs’ voice and change the name of the technology to Steve instead of Siri.  ”Hi this is Steve, How May I Help You?”

(Video 1)

(Video 2)

(Image 1)

Will you be grabbing the iPhone 4s? Is Siri your primary reason for the upgrade? Share your thoughts on Apple’s approach to Siri and it’s existing App owners.