Developer enables Siri on iPhone 4

Working in conjunction with 9to5Mac, Dublin based developer Steve Troughton-Smith has managed to port Siri – the voice-controlled personal assistant introduced with the iPhone 4S – to the iPhone 4. The news is bound to get owners of the previous-generation smartphone excited, but will Apple ever officially allow it?

Video showing Siri running on the iPhone 4:

There are a couple of issues that do need resolving – Apple’s servers won’t authenticate Siri commands sent from the iPhone 4, and the lack of (for obvious reasons) an iPhone 4 GPU driver in Siri’s binary files, means performance is a little slow. But as 9to5Mac point out, it appears that there is no technical reason for Apple not to allow Siri to run on the iPhone 4.

What remains to be seen, is whether Apple will choose to bring Siri to the iPhone 4. Based on past history, it seems unlikely. There are a number of examples where the company have chosen not to allow a new feature to run on previous generation hardware – only this week it was discovered that iOS 5 multi-touch gestures had not been ported to the first-generation iPad, despite the fact they worked reasonably well in developer versions of iOS.

You also to have to consider how much of a factor Siri is in persuading people to get an iPhone 4S – it’s not the only reason to get one, but based on the amount of press and attention Siri is getting, I’d argue that it’s the most compelling feature found on the new phone.

If Apple did bring Siri to the iPhone 4 would it put you off getting a 4S? Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.