Over the weekend, a pair of hackers successfully installed Apple’s previously iPhone 4S-exclusive voice assistant service, Siri, onto an iPhone 4 and fourth-generation iPod Touch. The hack works on jailbroken iOS devices.
Steve Troughton-Smith and Grant Paul announced the hack via Twitter late Saturday evening. The version of Siri they managed to install is described as “a limited port” by AppleInsider. While the workaround is reportedly not yet ready for public release, whenever it ends up being so, users will have to jailbreak their various iDevices before installing Siri.
AppleInsider reports that Siri operates “literally just as fast” on the iPhone 4 as it does on the 4S and that it is only “slightly slower” on the iPod touch.
Troughton-Smith promised that the details will be revealed eventually, but only after he and Paul determine that “[the hack] works, doesn’t break other things and is safe.” He doesn’t provide a specific date in the AppleInsider piece, claiming more generally, that the workaround will likely be made public after the release of an iPhone 4S jailbreak. Of course, jailbreaking the 4S could take a little while considering the well-known iOS hacker, Comex, is now on Apple’s payroll.
Siri is the standout feature of the otherwise iterative iPhone 4S, the latest version of Apple’s wildly popular smartphone. The feature, while technologically impressive (and seemingly the sole subject of Apple’s iPhone 4S marketing campaign) hasn’t come without security concerns. Within days of the phone’s release, researchers discovered that Siri could potentially bypass the iPhone’s lock mechanism, allowing an unauthenticated user to send texts or make calls or calendar appointments.
