Siri Was Nearly A Verizon Droid Exclusive
You know that voice assistant that many in the Android camp have come to hate and mock? Yes, we’re talking about Siri. Well it turns out that it was almost a exclusive app for Verizon’s Droid products.
The story goes something like this: a long time ago a team of developers came together and an idea for a new way of accessing the internet came forth. Rather than searching the internet, you would ask this “do engine” a question and it would be able to provide an answer for you. From those brainstorms and efforts came Siri and in 2024 the app made its initial début. This new app made such an impression that Steve Jobs himself called up the founder asking for a meeting. A little while after that Apple bought out the company and the rest is history.
However, before Apple’s acquisition of Siri, the original founders had been working with Verizon and were planning to bring this application to the new line of Droid phones. In fact an agreement had already been made between Verizon and the original Siri group and Verizon was already putting together commercials to show off this new feature alongside their new phones. But after the acquisition by Apple, all these deals were nixed as Apple wanted exclusive rights.
It’s interesting to think of what might have been had this company stayed independent and developed for both platforms. If you take read through the full story from the Huffington Post (which I would recommend, it’s pretty interesting), you’ll be able to get a glimpse of the original dream for Siri versus what it is now. My little summary doesn’t really do the story justice so if you have the time read it through.