December 5, 2011
Posted by James W
Siri Port For iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4G Released
Siri Port for iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G released
To the surprise of many, a Chinese hacking team known as CD Team has released a full port of Siri for the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4G. The port, called H1Siri, offers the full functionality of Siri on the iPhone 4S.
Previous “ports” of Siri allowed users to install the Siri UI, but did not actually connect with Apple’s servers and answer queries. Stroughton Smith and chpwn did develop a functional port, but due to the port relying on copyright infringement since the files must be copied off of an iPhone 4S, the more prominent iOS hackers declined to take their port beyond concept. H1Siri is an exciting development for a great number of users in the jailbreaking community.
There remained one significant barrier to the release of the port for other teams though, working around the requirement that each Siri request include a token identifying to Apple specifically which phone the request is being made from, and only answering those coming from an iPhone 4S. It is possible to copy this token to other devices, but it was assumed that if distributed on a mass scale, Apple would simply ban the token, breaking the port. The solution to this problem came in the form of research released by mobile developer Applidium. The developers conducted some very fine grain analysis of how Siri communicates with Apple’s servers, and were able to reverse engineer the process and with some custom software, enable themselves to act as a middleman between the device itself and Apple’s servers, allowing them to essentially edit requests before they were sent to Apple. CD Team has taken that concept and are basically doing the same thing but on a large scale.
H1Siri is compatible with the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4G. At this point, the iPhone 3GS, iPad, and iPad 2 are not able to run the port. In order to install, the device must be jailbroken on iOS 5 or 5.0.1.
There are a few caveats and things to consider before installing:
- The port does rely on copyright infringement. The files are not available publicly, and had to be copied off of a single iPhone 4S in order to be distributed in the port.
- This is the first version, and it is still very buggy. Due to the number of users, CD Team’s servers are having trouble completing requests, so many users are having trouble connecting. The team says they are working on dedicated servers to better handle the traffic. Other users have reported that their video camera was disabled after install. Some have also stated that it takes a couple reboots of the phone before it started working.
- Little is known about what information is being transmitted to and stored by CD Team’s servers. Because Siri interacts with a lot of personal information on your phone, it is possible that the hack may transmit email, SMS, contacts, calendar events, location information, and more. Whether CD Team can be trusted with that information, if it is in fact transmitted, remains to be seen.
- It is not known how CD Team is authenticating the requests with Apple. If they are using just a single token taken from one iPhone 4S, it would be surprising if Apple did not ban that token and any requests being made with it. It would also be surprising if CD Team had not already considered this and prepared a solution.
With all of that information, you are ready to install.
How To Install H1Siri:
Warning: This is beta software from a new developer. Ensure you have your device backed up, and are prepared for something to go wrong. Install at your own risk.
Step 1: You need a jailbroken iPhone 4 or iPod touch 4G running iOS 5 or 5.0.1. If you device is not already jailbroken, you will find our tutorial on how to jailbreak iOS 5 here.
Step 2: Navigate to Cydia > Sources > Edit > Add and add one of the following repos (UPDATE: Repo 3 appears to be the only repo working right now):
http://www.cydia.be
Alternate repo 1:
http://cydia.myrepospace.com/H1Siri/
Alternate repo 2:
http://www.iphone3gsystem.fr/cydia
Alternate repo 3:
http://www.Repocydios.com
Step 3: After the repo has loaded completely, go to Search, and search for H1Siri. Install the package, and reboot the device. (Note, some users have reported that you may need to reboot the device more than once in order for it to recognize the installation)
Step 4: Go to Setting > General > Siri and turn the slider to the “on” position.
Step 5: Exit Settings, then hold down the home button. Siri should activate, ready to take commands.
UPDATE:
If you are experiencing problems with the video camera, click here for the fix. We have also seen some limited reports of other various bugs, including getting stuck at the Apple logo and requiring a restore.
According to the CD-Dev Team, the port was leaked while they were in testing, which is why they were not prepared for the volume of traffic they are now seeing, and are scrambling to move it to better servers.
If you experience any bugs, report in the comments and we will try to research and post a fix when available.
UPDATE 2x:
CD-Team has released a statement saying they have changed the server address so they can continue testing Siri without traffic issues. This sheds light on why the H1Siri package disappeared off of the repos late last night.
It is unclear at this time whether they plan to rerelease the port after they have completed testing.
UPDATE 3x:
Some users are reporting they are still able to query Siri and occasionally reach the server. CD-Team has not changed the server yet, but are expected to do so shortly. They do appear to be looking towards a full release at a later point in time.
UPDATE 4x:
CD-Team has released another statement that seems to conflict with the earlier information about the server being shutdown. This is machine translated:
There is no account on twitter! These days are filled with rumors that where! That thedomain name has been deleted, the server has been shut down! After only small-scale testing, focus on development of extensions!
Given the language barrier, a lot of information seems to be getting lost in translation. It appears that a misunderstood translation resulted in the report of the server being shutdown, when they apparently intended to announce the move to better servers. We are working on finding a fluent speaker to translate their statements for us for more clarification. The status of the server is up in the air at this point, but we continue to hear about users who are still able to access Siri.
UPDATE 5x:
CD Team as stated through their Weibo that the servers should only be down for a few hours while they move to better servers. It’s safe to say at this point that the team has not decided to shut off the servers for further testing, and that the information they would was indeed a misunderstanding due to the language barrier. Users who have installed Siri should hold tight and wait for the servers to come back up, though it is hard to tell how long they will be down.
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8 Comments
December 5, 2011
yeah, repo 3 is the only one that works. http://www.Repocydios.com.
Siri works, but all she can say is “Sorry, I’m having trouble connecting to the network.” My guess is apple already found a way to keep this from working, unless someone has a tip?
December 6, 2011
No, that’s only because it is not making a connection to the apple servers. It’s just the GIU that we have always had on our iphone 4′s.
December 6, 2011
Dunno’ if it’s just me, but I can’t get any of the repos to work.
December 6, 2011
Whats the latest news?
Is the server eventually coming back or is it gone for good?
It did work for me for about 30 mins then stopped and never connected since.
That was 2 days ago now. (Sunday)
December 7, 2011
This is fake? ^^
http://siriport.ru/en_index.php – Siri Available Now on iPhone 4 iPhone 3Gs iPod Touch 4G iPod Touch 3G iPad 2 iPad
December 9, 2011
I’m guessing this is a dead siri port and it is gone and not going to work again.
It was nice when it worked for a total of 20 mins.
December 12, 2011
Just reinstalled H1Siri! haven’t had any connection issues yet… seems to be working fine! i’ll post again when i get a chance to use it (i’m in the office) haha
December 12, 2011
Whiche repo did you use?
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