Siri: Now legal to reverse engineer into the iPhone 4

File this report in the “This is cool, but you still won’t be getting Siri on your iPhone 4 any time soon” folder. After the release of iOS 5.0.1, previously encrypted files involving Siri are no longer encrypted. This will, supposedly, make the legal aspect of “hackers” releasing an iPhone 4 version of Siri less dire. I’m no legal expert, but I’ll assume that the people putting their necks in the line of fire from Apple’s legal council will have done the due diligence regarding the legalities.

Even if the legal issue is no longer in play, the technical issues are at this point. You pretty much still have to have access to an iPhone 4S in order to get this working for any lengthy period of time, and that defeats the purpose. At least, it defeats the practicality angle. I’m all for a group of the tech population tinkering to see if they can get it to work, but it still remains far out of reach for everyday iPhone 4 owners.

This also brings me to question what Apple is going to do with Siri once it leaves beta status. Heck, how long is it even going to remain in beta status? The longer it goes without official word from Apple, the less likely a full Siri port to older devices seems to me. That’s just my gut, though. I’m not placing any wagers. I’d like to know what you all think of the situation. Do you think the hackers will get a workable Siri port to the public? What about an official port from Apple themselves? Leave a comment on this post, and we’ll talk it out.

Source: Cult of Mac

Grant is a writer from Delaware. In his spare time, Grant maintains a personal blog, hosts The Weekly Roar, hosts Quadcast, and writes for video games.