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Apple patches Siri after it names rival as best smartphone


After turning on its creator by naming a competitor as the "best smartphone ever," Apple Inc.'s Siri may have received the equivalent of having its digital mouth washed out with soap.
 
Siri, which had answered "Nokia Lumia 900" to queries on what is the "best smartphone ever," now does not even want to recognize other phones out there.
 
"Wait... there are other phones?" is now Siri's new answer to the question about what is the best smartphone ever, according to a report on British Broadcasting Co. (BBC). BBC said this has prompted Nokia to accuse Apple of "overriding the software" after the quirky answer was noticed.
 
It said Apple would not confirm that a change had been made.
 
Last weekend, Siri generated controversy when it answered questions about what is the best smartphone ever with "Nokia Lumia 900."
 
Siri, a feature on Apple's iPhone 4S, uses the search engine Wolfram Alpha to fetch answers to some questions. But Wolfram Alpha pools available reviews and comments to come up with what it feels is the right result - in this case, basing its answer on reviews on the website of US retailer Best Buy.
 
"Apple position Siri as the intelligent system that's there to help, but clearly if they don't like the answer, they override the software," Nokia spokeswoman Tracey Postill told the Sydney Morning Herald.
 
But Nokia told BBC Postill's comments were "lighthearted" and "taken out of context."
 
"We were certainly flattered and honored," Nokia spokesman Doug Dawson added. — ELR, GMA News