Apple Changes Siri’s Embarrassing Nokia Favouritism

Nokia has accused Apple of showing bias towards its own smartphones after it apparently changed the answer that its voice recognition software Siri provided to the question ‘what is the best smartphone ever?’

Until recently Siri had responded that the best smartphone was the newly-released Nokia Lumia 900, although this is no longer the case.

Not amused

Siri, which was released on the iPhone 4S, is believed to have come up with the Nokia Lumia 900 after searching for reviews on the internet. However it no longer searches for the answer using its computational search engine.

If you now ask the question, Siri responds tongue-in-cheek “Wait… there are other phones?”, leading Nokia to accuse Apple of deliberately overriding the software after Apple found out. Yet the Cupertino-based company has not confirmed that it made such a change.

Siri’s other critics include those with such strong accents that the software cannot understand them.

The Lumia 900 was released last week and features a 4.3-inch AMOLED Clearback display and 4G LTE connectivity in markets that have such a network. Its UK launch was delayed by two weeks due to “overwhelming demand” in the US following its American debut. The US launch was also marred by a software glitch that prevented some users from connecting to their network, causing Nokia to offer affected users a $100 credit to their phone bill as compensation.

Announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January, the Lumia 900 is the successor to the Lumia 800, which was unveiled last October with the Lumia 710. These were the first smartphones to run the Windows Phone operating system after Nokia and Microsoft signed a strategic partnership last February.

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