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Apple's Siri Suffers Extended Service Outage

- By - Source : Forbes

Siri takes a sick day.

Apple hails Siri as the most important feature of the iPhone 4S, so no doubt there were plenty of disgruntled iPhone 4S owners yesterday when Siri went down for an extended period of time. Any iPhone 4S user wanting to know the weather, find local restaurants, or add an appointment to their calendar had to do so the old fashioned way, as Siri couldn't find a network connection. According to Forbes, from about 2 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EDT, Siri suffered a nationwide service outage during which any questions posed were answered with an apology stating that she couldn't connect to the servers that enable her personal assistant powers.

While Apple has always been clear that Siri needs an internet connection to work, the company's silence on the issue of her prolonged absence has angered users. Many users claimed at the time that they were on WiFi, had 3G signal or 'full bars' during Siri's down time. However, Siri also needs to communicate with Apple servers to process voice commands, so if Apple has a server problem, Siri stops working. Apple released no statement during the outage and, though full service has been restored, Cupertino has yet to explain what went wrong.

Users on Apple's support pages say they were told by Apple support staff that the company was experiencing overloaded server issues and was working to resolve the problem. One Applecare team member was quick to remind a frustrated user that Siri is still in Beta and there are kinks that need to be worked out, and that things would be in full working order once the they release the full version.

Did you have any Siri-related issues yesterday? Let us know in the comments below!

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ricdiculus 11/04/2011 11:17 PM
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-17+

Glad i still have fingers FTW!

ralfthedog 11/04/2011 11:20 PM
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Anonymous 11/04/2011 11:24 PM
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getreal 11/04/2011 11:37 PM
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ralfthedog 11/04/2011 11:39 PM
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-1+

weee :
One Applecare team member was quick to remind a frustrated user that Siri is still in Beta and there are kinks that need to be worked out, and that things would be in full working order once the they release the full version.lol so does that mean you will need to pay for the full version ?



You don't pay for Siri.

Anonymous 11/04/2011 11:41 PM
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-16+

Iris was still going strong at the time of the outage.

Anonymous 11/04/2011 11:47 PM
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Anonymous 11/04/2011 11:49 PM
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-9+

Boo hoo, first world problems

Anonymous 11/04/2011 11:56 PM
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-9+

Siri, why do some people not understand what 'beta' means?

Anonymous 11/04/2011 11:57 PM
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-1+

I didn't have any problems with Siri yesterday. However, today (11/4/11) is a different story. It's been unable to get network connection for 4 1/2 hours now. None of the 'troubleshooting' seems to work ie, turning off Siri, resetting network connection, closing open apps, and rebooting. I've done it all multiple times with out any success. I hope Apple lets us know something soon, as the tech I spoke with wasn't able to tell me to try anything I hadn't already done.

bystander 11/05/2011 12:10 PM
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-7+

Remember, Siri is in Beta still. Probably to shield themselves from this sort of backlash.

blurr91 11/05/2011 12:20 PM
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-4+

They were holding it wrong?

Anonymous 11/05/2011 12:26 PM
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-3+

This problem is not entirely resolved. I still cannot get SIRI to connect to the network.

Camikazi 11/05/2011 12:30 PM
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-20+

Wait Apple released a Beta program and touted it as a major feature? I thought Apple only made things that "just work", you can't claim that when releasing beta software (specially when I doubt they told the buyers Siri was beta).

socalboomer 11/05/2011 12:37 PM
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-16+

Quote :One Applecare team member was quick to remind a frustrated user that Siri is still in Beta and there are kinks that need to be worked out,


If it's still in Beta and not stable, they shouldn't have promoted it as
Quote :the most important feature of the iPhone 4S

QEFX 11/05/2011 12:47 PM
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-7+

I wonder of if the class action lawyers who are going after R.I.M. were affected?

Anonymous 11/05/2011 12:50 PM
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Anonymous 11/05/2011 1:00 AM
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-10+

"she rocks" my dear god, someone should get a grip

Anonymous 11/05/2011 1:05 AM
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--2+

It is still down and it is a premium product and not beta. Also, with cloud services available, Apple should have the capabilities to add additional resources on the fly. They just need to pick up their iPhone and say "add more resources to Siri".

georgerc 11/05/2011 1:09 AM
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-0+

May be it is 'Not tonight, honey! I have a head ache'. Let her have some well deserved rest!

http://theforbittenfruit.ndnlfn.co [...] -coming-2/

bystander 11/05/2011 1:09 AM
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-4+

cmercer :
It is still down and it is a premium product and not beta. Also, with cloud services available, Apple should have the capabilities to add additional resources on the fly. They just need to pick up their iPhone and say "add more resources to Siri".



Premium product or not, Siri has been labeled as being in Beta by Apple, since it's release.

everygamer 11/05/2011 1:26 AM
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alidan 11/05/2011 1:29 AM
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-6+

blurr91 :
They were holding it wrong?


no, this time they were talking wrong.

Vladislaus 11/05/2011 1:36 AM
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-0+

weee :
One Applecare team member was quick to remind a frustrated user that Siri is still in Beta and there are kinks that need to be worked out, and that things would be in full working order once the they release the full version.lol so does that mean you will need to pay for the full version ?


just because a program is in beta stage doesn't mean it will be a paid software once it reaches a stable release.

Vladislaus 11/05/2011 1:40 AM
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-2+

cmercer :
It is still down and it is a premium product and not beta. Also, with cloud services available, Apple should have the capabilities to add additional resources on the fly. They just need to pick up their iPhone and say "add more resources to Siri".


http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html

Anonymous 11/05/2011 1:46 AM
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-2+

happened to me yesterday too, damn T_T

back_by_demand 11/05/2011 1:49 AM
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-9+

All I can say is, if you bought an iPhone it serves you right
...
Don't trust Apple

dalethepcman 11/05/2011 1:52 AM
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Anonymous 11/05/2011 1:56 AM
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As of 19:52 tonight 4 Nov. Siri has been unable to get network connection all day. I have tried all of the 'troubleshooting' (turning off Siri, resetting network connection, closing open apps, and rebooting.) No success. I am using Verizon and everything else seems to work fine. Siri won't make calls or texts for me either. I think she is sick of all the demands being put on her.

bystander 11/05/2011 2:00 AM
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-10+

It must be that time of the month. You might want to mark this time of the month so you are prepared for next month.

halcyon 11/05/2011 2:16 AM
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I had been wondering how long it was going to take for this to happen. ...a lot sooner than I had expected and for a lot longer than I would have expected. Well, at least its fixed.