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A5 Mystery Solved (Why Siri Won't Run On iPhone 4)
Hugh Pickens writes "Anna Leach reports that Siri support has been a contentious issue for owners of earlier iPhones, but a recent filing from Audience shows that Siri won't run on the iPhone 4 because the phone's chip can't handle it. Linley Gwennap of the Linley Group cracked one of the secrets of the new iPhone's A5 chip after working out that it packs some serious audio cleaning power not available on the iPhone 4's A4 chip. Audience has developed technology that removes most or all of the background noise when someone places a cell-phone call from a restaurant, airport, or other noisy location. The iPhone 4S integrates Audience's 'EarSmart' technology directly into the A5 processor, improving its technology to handle 'far-field speech,' which means holding the device at arm's length rather than directly in front of the mouth. Apple has also licensed the Audience technology for a 'new generation of processor IP,' which may mean that the forthcoming A6 processor will appear in the iPad 3 and iPhone 5. 'Why Apple has not simply purchased Audience is unclear. An acquisition would prevent Audience's other major customer, Samsung, from using the technology to compete with Apple,' says Gwennap. 'The company may be hedging its bets, as it could switch to Qualcomm's Fluence noise-reduction technology in the future.'"
I have tried Siri on a jailbroken iPhone 4 and it works just as well, I did not notice any difference.
I doubt this is a major reason for not enabling this on the iPhone 4, especially when taking into account how little difference "just" the improved camera and a dual core processor is to most users.
I would think the improved hardware sensor played a major role, but again, Siri worked just as well for me on an iPhone 4.
Also, I'm surprised that they advertise as "removing most or all of the background noise", while Siri did a fairly good job of knowing who was talking to her, it gets confused too often, which means that it won't work very well if other people in the room are talking.
Or maybe they wanted Siri to work really well, - even if there's background noise.
Apple's now defunct Newton was laughed at over the original version's poor handwriting recognition. Even though it improved immensely over time, lots of folks never got over that initial bad impression.
Well, reading TFS, it says they "licensed a new generation of processor IP" -- but if you ask me, that sounds suspiciously like "licensed some DSP code that runs on any sufficiently-powerful DSP, but only paid for a license for their new chip
That would make the statement "Siri can only run on the A5" true, then. It's just that the "why" is not the most obvious why. The why is a legal/contractual why.
I don't know why anybody cares, Siri isn't very useful at the present time anyway.
Have to agree with this. My cochlear implant, circa 1997, has a "filter" mode that works great to attenuate road noise, air-conditioner hum, vacuum cleaners, and lots of other repetitious sounds. It's not so good in a crowded room with lots of people talking.
I don't know why anybody cares, Siri isn't very useful at the present time anyway.
It's right that you qualified this, but all the same I find it incredibly useful right now for a limited number of scenarios. For example to set an alarm I just hold down the home button and say "wake me at six" - that's it, alarm set.
Another example, I'm walking down the street after work and want to send a text to the wife that maybe I'll be late. Well I just hold the phone to my ear, say "send a text" and take it from there. Could never do this obviously using the touch interface.
One more, locating a particular song: "play me Always crashing in the Same Car". That would normally take me ages to do.
All those thing may seem trivial to you, but not having all the options buried deep down to me, seems obviously the way to go. The nerd in me thinks of it as all commands being the same short distance away from me, the discrete metric space.