Apple acquires Siri

Background

Before it was an Apple product, Siri was the name of a company. The New York Times described it as a San Jose start-up that called itself a virtual personal assistant for the iPhone and iPod Touch; its application let users perform Web searches by voice command on a cellphone ^[1]. The company had been spun off by SRI International in 2007 to bring CALO-derived technology to consumers, and it raised 24 million dollars in two rounds of financing ^[2]. By the time of the sale, it had raised a total of 24 million dollars from investors including Menlo Ventures and Li Ka-Shing ^[1].

What happened

On 29 April 2010, The New York Times reported that Apple had acquired Siri ^[1]. Apple did not discuss the deal in detail: spokesman Steve Dowling declined to comment on specifics and said that Apple buys smaller companies from time to time but does not comment on products or plans ^[1]. Norman Winarsky, vice president of licensing and strategic programs at SRI International, confirmed the sale but declined to disclose the financial details ^[1]. SRI's own history of the work records that Apple acquired Siri in April 2010 ^[2]. No purchase price was made public by either side ^[1].

Afterwards

SRI's official history notes that in October 2011 Siri was unveiled as an integrated feature of the Apple iPhone 4S ^[2]. A capability that had arrived as a downloadable application on an existing phone thus reappeared, a year and a half later, as something the new phone shipped with.

Why it matters

The episode is a short, well-documented example of a path that runs through a lot of applied AI: a research organisation develops a technology, a spin-off company is created to bring it to consumers, and a hardware maker buys the company and folds the capability into its product. SRI's account supplies every link in this particular chain, from CALO-derived technology, to the 2007 spin-off and its two financing rounds, to the April 2010 acquisition, to the integrated feature of October 2011 ^[2].

It also shows how plainly such deals can be reported at the time. The available record is a newspaper story built on a company description, a company spokesman's refusal to comment, and a research institute official confirming the sale without numbers ^[1]. The financing history — 24 million dollars raised, from investors including Menlo Ventures and Li Ka-Shing — is on the record, but the price Apple paid is not ^[1].

For a user, the change is about where voice sits in the device. In the start-up's version, speaking a search was a function of one application among many on an iPhone or iPod Touch ^[1]. After the purchase, the same kind of assistant became part of the system software of a new model, announced to the public in October 2011 ^[2]. The acquisition is therefore a common reference point for the moment voice-driven assistance moved from a third-party app into the phone itself — and for how little of the commercial detail behind that move was ever disclosed.