Siri

Apple's first notion of a digital personal assistant was originally a concept video in 1987, called the "Knowledge Navigator".

The original American voice of Siri was provided by Susan Bennett in July 2005, unaware that it would eventually be used for the voice assistant. A report from The Verge in September 2013 about voice actors, their work, and machine learning developments, made hints that Allison Dufty was the voice behind Siri, though this was disproven when Dufty wrote on her website that she was "absolutely, positively NOT the voice of Siri". Citing growing pressure, Bennett revealed her role as Siri in October, and her claim was proven by Ed Primeau, an American audio forensics expert. Apple has never confirmed the information.

Siri received mixed reviews during its "beta" release as an integrated part of iPhone 4S in October 2011.

Over the years, Apple has expanded the line of officially supported products, including newer iPhone Models, as well as iPad support in June 2012, iPod Touch support in September 2012, Apple TV support, and the standalone Siri Remote, in September 2015, Mac and AirPods support in September 2016, and HomePod support in February 2018.

In March 2012, Frank M. Fazio filed a class action lawsuit against Apple on behalf of the people who bought iPhone 4S and felt misled about the capabilities of Siri, alleging its failing to function as depicted in Apple's Siri commercials. Fazio filed the lawsuit in California and claimed that the iPhone 4S was merely a "more expensive iPhone 4" if Siri fails to function as advertised. On July 22, 2013, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in San Francisco dismissed the suit but said the plaintiffs could amend at a later time. The reason given for dismissal was that plaintiffs did not sufficiently document enough misrepresentations by Apple for the trial to proceed.

Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica wrote that Apple's claims of what Siri could do were "bold", and the early demos "even bolder". Cheng wrote that "Though Siri shows real potential, these kinds of high expectations are bound to be disappointed", adding that "Apple makes clear that the product is still in beta—an appropriate label, in our opinion". While praising its ability to "decipher our Casual language" and deliver "very specific and accurate result", sometimes even providing additional information, Cheng noted and criticized its restrictions, particularly when the language moved away from "stiffer commands" into more human interactions. One Example included the phrase "Send a text to Jason, Clint, Sam, and Lee saying we're having dinner at Silver Cloud", which Siri interpreted as sending a message to Jason only, containing the text "Clint Sam and Lee saying we're having dinner at Silver Cloud". She also noted a lack of proper editability, as saying "Edit message to say: we're at Silver Cloud and you should come find us", generated "Clint Sam and Lee saying we're having dinner at Silver Cloud to say we're at Silver Cloud and you should come find us".

In September 2015, the "Hey Siri" feature was updated to include individualized voice recognition, a presumed effort to prevent non-owner activation.

In October 2016, Bloomberg reported that Apple had plans to unify the teams behind its various cloud-based services, including a single campus and reorganized cloud computing resources aimed at improving the processing of Siri's queries, though another report from The Verge in June 2017 once again called Siri's voice recognition "bad".

In June 2017, The Wall Street Journal published an extensive report on the lack of innovation with Siri following competitors' advancement in the field of voice assistants. Noting that Apple workers' anxiety levels "went up a notch" on the announcement of Amazon's Alexa, the Journal wrote that "Today, Apple is playing catch-up in a product category it invented, increasing worries about whether the Technology giant has lost some of its innovation edge". The report cites the primary causes as being Apple's prioritization of user privacy, including randomly-tagged six-month Siri searches, whereas Google and Amazon keep data until actively discarded by the user, and executive power struggles with some employees leaving. Apple declined to comment on the report, while Eddy Cue said that "Apple often uses generic data rather than user data to train its systems and has the ability to improve Siri’s performance for individual users with information kept on their iPhones".

Siri was criticized by pro-choice abortion organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and NARAL Pro-Choice America, after users found that Siri could not provide information about the location of birth control or abortion providers nearby, sometimes directing users to pro-life crisis pregnancy centers instead. Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Apple, told The New York Times that "Our customers want to use Siri to find out all types of information, and while it can find a lot, it doesn’t always find what you want", adding "These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone. It simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better, and we will in the coming weeks". In January 2016, Fast Company reported that, in then-recent months, Siri had begun to confuse the word "abortion" with "adoption", citing "health experts" who stated that the situation had "gotten worse". However, at the time of Fast Company's report, the situation had changed slightly, with Siri offering "a more comprehensive list of Planned Parenthood facilities", although "Adoption clinics continue to pop up, but near the bottom of the list."