Apple iPhone 4S' Siri says the darnedest things
— -- The new Apple iPhone 4S can do more than just check e-mail and make phone calls. It's also turning into a new — sometimes sassy, often entertaining — digital friend for millions of consumers.
The most touted new feature, the Siri personal digital assistant, has, hidden in the software, dozens of humorous responses to silly questions.
Consumers are asking Siri for dates, marriage, sexual advice, math equations and even crazy stuff like where to hide a dead body.
To their surprise: Siri usually has an answer.
Comedian Stephen Colbert opened his Colbert Report Tuesday night on Comedy Central asking Siri, in jest, to write his show for him. Musician Jonathan Mann wrote an online duet this week with Siri, which has burned up the YouTube charts so far with more than 400,000 views.
Apple declined to comment. But Apple engineers apparently thought of every possible answer in programming Siri. "If you mention sex in any way, it takes you to an escort service," says Mann, who used about every potential Siri answer to comedic effect in his Duet with Siri. Pretty funny.
Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies, figures Siri has "tens of thousands" of answers to choose from. "Siri is linked to a very powerful set of databases," he says.
The response from consumers to Siri was to be expected, he adds. "I would have been shocked if they didn't respond this way. People are curious, and they say curious things."
USA TODAY told Siri it loved her. The answer: "Oh stop."
Meanwhile, availability for the new iPhone 4S is still elusive. Apple sold 4 million of the phones worldwide last weekend, but phones have been hard to come by since. Availability through Apple's online store promises a wait of one to two weeks for delivery. The wait is much longer with the wireless carriers. Verizon has waits that range from Oct. 28 to Nov. 4 for iPhones, while AT&T promises delivery in 21 to 28 days. Sprint is totally sold out of the 16-GB model, which sells for $199 with a two-year contract, but promises delivery of the more expensive 32-GB model for $299 in two weeks.
TALKING YOUR TECH: GETTING TO KNOW SIRI
All sorts of questions, and more, were hurled this week at Siri, the talking personal digital assistant for the Apple iPhone 4S. The consensus: Siri is a little bit Hal from the epic movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, mixed with humor from Apple engineers.
Phone users went beyond the usual requests for weather forecasts, setting up meetings and dictating text messages. Many just had fun with Siri, asking silly questions simply to see the responses. We asked USA TODAY readers to chime in with some of their Siri stories. Here's what they had to say.
Riddle me this
"I asked Siri how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if it could chuck wood, and it answered," says Ryan Fettig, 25, of Bismarck, N.D. "It was hilarious." Said Siri: "A woodchuck would chuck as much as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood."
Entertaining conversation
"If I'm bored and sitting in traffic, I can goof around and have a conversation with something that's not a person, something witty that can keep me entertained," says Charles Badics, a South Lyon, Mich., software engineer. "I asked what it was wearing, and it said 'aluminum body with a glass front and back.' "
Auto-read
Related Stories
ABC News Live