Jailbreak Developers Release Free And Legal Siri Port In Cydia

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Known developers Grant Paul (a.k.a ‘chpwn’) and Ryan Petrich have released a working Siri port for older, jailbroken iOS devices in Cydia. “Spire” will install Siri on older-generation iOS devices, including the original iPad.

Spire downloads Siri directly from Apple’s servers. The only catch is that you will need access to an iPhone 4S and your own proxy to get the port up and running.

Grant Paul broke the news on his personal blog moments ago:

Spire is my (along with Ryan Petrich) new tool for installing Siri on previously unsupported, but jailbroken, devices. Spire is a small download, but while installing it will download Siri itself (directly from Apple). Spire is available in Cydia right now — go get it! This will use about 100 MB of data, so please connect to Wi-Fi before installing.

Not only is Spire legal, but it’s available for free. Older-generation iOS devices will still need an iPhone 4S authentication key to enter into Spire’s proxy server address field. Using Pete Lamonica‘s SiriProxy (the same brain behind the Siri-powered car remote, TV remote, etc. demos), Spire will allow Siri to function in its full capacity on non-4S hardware.

Creating your own SiriProxy is relatively straightforward (and yet a little tedious) to setup. A step-by-step tutorial to installing your own SiriProxy can be found here. You will need a SiriProxy set up for Spire to work on jailbroken iOS devices.

Grant Paul says that Spire circumvents the copyright issues that have kept a Siri port withheld from the general public:

Spire uses a new method to obtain the files necessary for Siri, so it doesn’t have the copyright issues encountered by previous attempts. Similarly, rather than directing all traffic through a specific proxy server (and the associated privacy issues), Spire allows you to specify your own proxy server.

Video of Siri running on older-generation hardware surfaced a couple of months ago, and Steven Troughton-Smith provided the backbone for Spire. Grant Paul and Ryan Petrich continued to work on the port and get it ready for release. Troughton-Smith tells 9to5Mac that, “Until the iPhone 4S is jailbroken, this is the best Siri port. When the iPhone 4S is jailbroken, then we can avoid the proxy server issues.”

Users with jailbroken iOS devices can search for Spire in Cydia and install it now. Spire will run on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, first-gen iPad, and 3rd and 4th-gen iPod touch. Let us know how it goes for you in the comments!

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