The iPhone 4S"s Siri voice recognition feature can come up with some odd and funny responses at times to the questions given by users of Apple"s smartphone. But if a British tabloid is to be believed (and that"s always a big "if") one users got a rather vulgar response to a innocent question.
The Sun reports that a 12 year old in Coventry was using a demo version of the iPhone 4S and used the Siri feature to ask, "How many people are there in the world?". The Sun claims that Siri"s response was," Shut the f*** up, you ugly t***." The child"s mother claims she couldn"t believe that Siri would give such a statement and asked the same question again. She says, "The same four-letter stuff blared out."
The demo version was being used in a Tesco retail store and the report says that the management of the store says that pranksters had somehow gotten a hold of the iPhone 4S and changed its set-up so that the phone"s user name was in fact that seven word phrase. That meant that Siri said that phrase when asked a question.
Nevertheless, the manager is quoted as saying, "We have launched an investigation. The handset will be going back to Apple for diagnostic tests."
Lesson for the day: Demo units in stores can be messed with so be careful in assuming the demo version is the same as the actual product.