Apple’s Siri Lands On Jailbroken iOS 5 Devices

Forget all those illicit, convoluted hacks that let you kind-of-sort-of put Siri on your iPhone or iPod Touch. It’s called Spire, and it still requires that you jailbreak your iOS device, so it’ll only appeal to that user niche, but the thorny legal question, prior hacks violate Apple copyright by requiring users pull down pirated copies of Siri, is no longer an issue. The solution: Spire just grabs the Siri code from Apple directly.

Spire, writes iOS hacker Grant Paul, is a “new tool for installing Siri on previously unsupported, but jailbroken, devices,” a small download that “while installing…will download Siri itself (directly from Apple).” But since Siri is a much larger download and “will use about 100 MB of data,” Paul advises you’ll probably want to be connected to Wi-Fi before you grab it.

Another upside to Spire: You can specify your own proxy device instead of using a preconfigured one (which Paul notes has “privacy issues”). But the hack still has a significant hurdle: Since Apple requires an iPhone 4S to authorize requests, you’ll need a proxy device to get the job done. That’ll be a deal-breaker for many, but if you’re game, Paul offers a list of ideas to get you started.

The first sounds unwieldy, owning an iPhone 4S, though you could go this route if you’re trying to help family or friends with older iPhones. The second sounds more plausible — using a “pay for” service where you rent someone else’s iPhone 4S, wired up like a server somewhere and dedicated to handling Siri requests.

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