Apple Disabling Siri Ports on Unsupported Hardware? Sure Seems Like It.

Hackers have developed ways (namely Spire) for users to take advantage of Siri on the iPhone 4 and other unsupported devices. It now appears, however, that Apple may be targeting these users, and blocking unauthorized hardware from using such hacks.

iDownloadBlog reports that Apple has added a new “SetActivationToken” required for Siri to function, which disables current Siri ports. There does appear to be a fix, however. As iDownloadBlog states:

To fix these latest Siri server issues, it has been reported that a purge of the com.apple.assistant.plist file located in the var/mobile/Library/Preferences/ directory remedies the issue. I have not been able to independently confirm this, but I have heard success reports on Twitter.

It’s not at all clear that Apple is intentionally targeting unauthorized Siri usage, especially since it’s so simple to work around the new requirement.

J. Glenn Künzler

Glenn is Managing Editor at MacTrast, and has been using a Mac since he bought his first MacBook Pro in 2006. He lives in a small town in Utah, enjoys bacon more than you can possibly imagine, and is severely addicted to pie.