Shit That Siri Says

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About

Shit That Siri Says refers to humorous chat logs of human voice interaction with Siri, the personal assistant application for iPhone operating system iOS5, as documented by the single topic blog Advertised by Apple^[7] as a voice interactive program with an attitude and a sense of humor, iPhone users began sharing their memorable dialogues with Siri upon its releasee in October 2011.

Origin

Siri was first announced on October 4th, 2011 as a part of iOS5 update during the Let's Talk iPhone keynote presentation. A promotional video was uploaded onto YouTube and featured on Apple's website:

On the same day, people began creating remixes of the Siri commercial. SiriFunny.com^[3] was created on October 5th, 2011 and StuffSiriSaid.com^[10] was purchased on October 7th in anticipation. The single topic Tumblr blog Shit That Siri Says^[4] was created on October 12th, 2011. Siri first became available to public with the release of iPhone 4S on October 14th.

Spread

Mainstream news outlets covered Siri and its quirky responses quickly. Mobiledia^[5] described Siri as having a "coy robotic cynicism" on October 13th. On the iPhone 4S release day, New York Times blogger David Pogue^[6] posted a list of Siri's best responses to "What is the meaning of life?" and CNN^[9] compiled a list of their favorite Siri question and answers on October 18th. PC Mag^[8] covered the five best memes from Siri on October 16th.

Notable Examples

Siri Reacts to Her

On January 6th, 2014, not long after the release of Her, Spike Jonze's sci-fi comedy drama film about a man who falls in love with his female-gendered operating system not unlike Siri, Jezebel^[14] published an article about a discovery of Siri's easter egg feature that provides passive-aggressive responses when asked about the fictional character.

Criticisms

While Siri received generally positive reviews from the mobile tech blogosphere, it came under criticisms from pro-choice interest groups in December 2011 when users discovered that the app did not provide local directory information regarding birth control providers or abortion clinics, sometimes directing users to anti-abortion crisis centers instead. The discovery soon led HappyPlace^[13] to post parody screenshots depicting Siri as overly suggestive of abortion clinics. Apple eventually released a statement saying it is a glitch that will be fixed in the final version of the app.

Siri has been also described as inaccurate in reception when interacting with English speakers with heavy accents, including Scottish, Japanese, New England and Southern accents among others.

Jailbreak Features

On January 20th, 2012, various tech news sites reported that iPhone 4S has been jailbroken by Chronic Dev Team, enabling exclusive apps for Siri, such as SiriToggle which allows users to toggle on/off wireless connection settings and Sireet that lets users to post tweets directly via Apple's voice-interactive application.