Siri

Several reports about Apple altering its requirements for Siri are causing people to wonder if the company is trying to block non-iPhone 4S devices from using the voice assistant. A new token is causing a problem for owners who are trying to connect using jailbreak tools like Spire.

Originally to get Siri to work on an non-iPhone 4S device you only needed a sever host and iPhone 4S certificate. However, according to several forums and Twitter, Apple has added a SetActivationToken which is causing issues with 3rd party servers. Thankfully their seems to be a temporary workaround.

There is a new Cydia tweak that teaches Siri to display the last five tweets from your Twitter timeline. I haven't quite figured out why it's needed, but a few improvements may make it a more useful tool in the future.

The tweak is called TweetLine, and it can be located in the ModMyi repo under "Sources" in the Cydia Store. Once installed just say the word "Timeline" to prompt Siri to access your Twitter account. She will then show you the last five tweets from your timeline. You will also need the free Twitter app from the iTunes App Store for it to work.

If you've used pod2g's exploit to jailbreak your iPhone 4S you can now take advantage of the many Siri tweaks available through Cydia. There is CustomSiriBackground, which allows you to wallpaper Siri with any photo from your Camera Roll, and Sireet, which gives Siri the ability to send tweets. But the best Siri tweak of all has to be AssistantExtensions.

AssistantExtensions turns Siri into the voice assistant we've all been waiting for. It allows Siri to search YouTube videos and launch apps, but best of all it can make her hold intimate conversations with you. Saying the phrase "Lets Chat" activates the Siri chat mode. After a short wait for her to load some textual data, Siri will tell jokes and give you information without having to connect to the web. For example, asking her "what is Apple" will result in her giving you three definitions, the third being "Empire for Steve Jobs." AssistantExtensions opens a whole new world of possibilities for Siri, and it even allows you to have custom conversations if you take the time to create them.

Now that the iPhone 4S has been jailbroken developers are scrambling to provide new tweaks and improvements to enhance iOS 5. The Siri personal assistant is exclusive to the iPhone 4S and is already getting some great enhancements to add functionality. One example of a feature left out by Apple is the ability to update Twitter with Siri.

Apple still considers Siri technology in a beta phase, which is probably one reason why sending tweets is not officially supported. Not only this, but iOS 5 is the first time Apple has integrated Twitter into the operating system. Now thanks to Sireet, jailbroken iPhone 4S users can natively send tweets using Siri.