Since the iPhone 4S launch, hackers have been trying to figure out how to make Siri do more than Apple has designed it to do. Now it's being ported to other Apple devices, and enterprising iPhone 4S owners are using it to control their lights, theromstats, and even their cars. We'll be keeping track of the most ingenious hacks we can find right here.
Siri hacks, mods, and tricks
Japanese language support next in line for Siri?
It looks like Japanese could be the next language to work with Siri, if the voice recognition software itself is to be believed. Try it for yourself — ask her what languages she speaks, and you'll get the answer shown above. So far Siri has only been able to understand French, German, and various dialects of English, but Apple's FAQ page has stated for a while that Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish are on the way. While Apple is able to make changes to the backend of Siri any...
The Flaming Lips 'Now I Understand' featuring Apple's Siri on vocals
Wayne Coyne and his group The Flaming Lips this weekend are previewing a "sound construction" piece that features not only Erykah Badu and "Biz Markie backwards" (we're struggling to hear it, too) but also Apple's own Siri personal assistant, found most days on an iPhone 4S helping people hide bodies. The loose narrative begins with Siri not understanding the moon, the stars, and the sun... but with the power of Erykah Badu's singing, and her pointing out stars and sun, Siri learns to...
Siri voice translation comes to the iPhone 4S via Lingual
Another day, another Siri hack. Lingual is a new jailbreak-only tweak for the iPhone 4S that extends Siri's functionality to voice translation. Created by the CodeThemed team, Lingual allows translation from English to over 30 languages. The developers have said that they're hoping to include translation to English in a future update. We installed the tweak and can report that it works flawlessly, quickly pulling in results using Microsoft's Bing Translate API as a backend. Its only...
SiriToggles brings voice-activated app launching and settings toggles to your jailbroken iPhone 4S
Since the Absinthe jailbreak tool was launched last Friday, developers have released a pair of tweaks for the newly exploited iPhone 4S, specifically targeting its exclusive Siri feature. While VoiceUtils provides some base functionality, our favorite is SiriToggles, which allowed us to launch applications, toggle a few system settings, and check how much battery we have remaining.
There's no front-end to SiriToggles, it works within the boundaries of Apple's existing UX, activated by a...
Air Dictate turns Siri into your Mac personal secretary
A new app from developer Avatron has found a way to use a Siri-enabled iPhone to dictate to Macs on your network using your voice. For now it's limited to text input — there's no voice control of other applications just yet — but considering there's no public API for Siri, this is still impressive. The iPhone app requires you to install a software receiver onto the Macs you wish to use, which then broadcast their availability around your Wi-Fi network. Once you've selected your Mac and...
H1Siri hack for iPhone 4 and iPod touch on Cydia: use at your own risk (update)
Hackers have been attempting to port Siri onto hardware besides the iPhone 4S ever since it launched, and now jailbroken iPhone 4 or iPod touch users can get in on the fun. A Chinese hacker group known as CD-Team released the H1Siri application to Cydia (the main app source for jailbroken iOS devices) and now dozens of users have taken to YouTube showing Apple's digital assistant running on their unsupported hardware. You need to run iOS 5 or higher and have a jailbroken iPhone 4 or...
The latest SiriProxy hack controls an entire room
Thanks to SiriProxy, iPhone 4S users have been figuring out ways to start cars, queue up Plex, and adjust the thermostat just by telling their phone to do it for them. Now we're seeing video of an even bigger home automation hack, with a hacker known as phildman14 closing his curtains, turning on his overhead fan, and dimming several lights just by asking Siri for assistance. phildman14 noted on YouTube that it's based on an iPhone app he wrote that lets him perform the same controls,...
Siri0us brings Siri dictation to jailbroken iOS 5 devices
We've seen an unreleased Siri hack that purportedly works on the iPhone 4, and now there's a jailbreak package cheekily dubbed Siri0us that uses a workaround to bring Siri dictation to jailbroken iOS 5 devices (it's been confirmed to work on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPod Touch). Like Siri, the hack is powered by Nuance's voice recognition technology and is able to replace the keyboard within apps, but there are important differences. Since phones other than the 4S can't communicate...
Siri hacks control your car and media center
We covered the Siri proxy hack last week, which allows developers to catch custom phrases and act on them, expanding the functionality of Apple's voice-controlled personal assistant. We'd anticipated this work being employed by other developers, and a few exciting uses for the hack have already started to appear.
First up, Brandon Fiquett has written code that allows him to start, stop, open the trunk, and activate the alarm in his Acura using the kind of voice controls we've come to expect...
Siri proxy hack adds custom commands including Wi-Fi thermostat control
Once the folks at Applidium had cracked the Siri protocol, it was only a matter of time before the first mods, exploits and hacks started to leak out. Because Siri relies on Apple's servers to deliver results, the limitations on what it can and can't do are entirely controlled at the server end. However, with the way Siri communicates with the data center now fully understood, a developer called Plamoni has managed to create his own custom handlers, using a proxy to catch terms and act upon...
Siri protocol cracked, new tools could bring it to other platforms
The mobile developers at Applidium have cracked the security controls that keep Siri working only on the iPhone 4S. The group has also released a set of tools to allow other developers to take advantage of its discoveries. Theoretically, that means access to Siri's services could be enabled on other iOS devices — or even on other platforms such as Android. The caveat here is that in order to take advantage of the tools, users will need access to a a genuine unique identifier from an iPhone...
Siri hack allows you to access system settings and apps with your voice
Siri may not be able to do everything for you yet, but iPhone users are finding creative ways to expand its capabilities. It turns out there's a fairly simple way to add shortcuts to different apps and system preferences to your contact list, which is of course accessible by Siri. All you need to do is create a contact and name it after the preference or app you want to access, and then paste a little bit of javascript into the URL field of your new contact. You can then ask Siri to bring up...
Siri hacked to work on iPhone 4 and iPod touch (video)
Siri, the voice-based personal assistant software that Apple would only let us run on the iPhone 4S has this weekend seen itself ported to the more modestly specced iPhone 4 and fourth-gen iPod touch. Performance is identical on the older devices to what it is on the 4S, inviting the conclusion that considerations outside of pure hardware capabilities — such as the cost and scale of supporting Siri server requests from the millions of compatible devices — led to the decision to limit the...
Apple's Siri ported to the iPhone 4
Apple's kept mum on why its new iOS digital assistant Siri is limited to the iPhone 4S, but it certainly doesn't appear to be due to any hardware limitations: developer Steven Troughton-Smith has hacked a regular iPhone 4 to run the talkative service. Working with 9to5Mac, Troughton-Smith was able to install the 4S Springboard and related Siri files onto the previous-gen device, and claims the device should able to recognize spoken commands in both dictation and Siri inquiry modes....
