Just when we thought the Siri-mania is coming to a standstill, at least for this year, the iPhone 4S' 'intelligent' personal assistant has once again grabbed the headlines, albeit yet again for reasons that don't please Tim Cook and his team.
Apple's introduction of the automated voice control system with their latest and greatest iPhone back in October attracted many eye-balls -- for reasons both right and wrong -- and since then there hasn't been a single day when Siri hasn't been in the news. Today, according to a report published in The Sun, a 12 year old boy and his mum were left shocked and dumb-founded when Siri told them to "shut the f*** up".
The boy picked up one of the iPhone 4S pieces kept for demonstration purposes at a local Tesco supermarket. He immediately thought of trying his hand at Siri, asking the following question: "How many people are there in the world?". Siri's reply, to the Coventry-based mother-child duo's utter shock, was: "shut the f**k up, you ugly t**t".
Surprised by the response, Charlie Le Quesne (the 12 year old kid) asked the question one more time, only to hear the exact response from Siri.
Charlie’s mum Kim told The Sun:
"The phone was a demo version and was low enough on the shelf for Charlie to have a go with it. He asked it a simple question and we couldn’t believe the filth it came out with.
"I thought I must be hearing things. So we asked again and the same four-letter stuff blared out.
"I asked for the manager and after staff heard it they agreed to unplug it."
According to the report, Tesco staff were forced to apologize to the Le Quesne’s, pleading that some pranksters may have tampered with the phone's set-up instructions which led to the unfortunate incident.
In the end, it turned out that this was in fact the case, as a previous user had reprogrammed Siri to recognise the phone's user by a new, albeit offensive, name. In many cases, Siri will reply to the user with his/her name.
In the interests of science, let us show you how easy it is to do:
Tesco confirmed the incident, stating that it had launched an investigation into the matter and that "the handset will be going back to Apple for diagnostic tests."
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