Apple's spooky iPhone prediction
Apple's iPhone 4S announcement yesterday had many feeling a little déjà vu. That's because the phone's new language-based voice assistant called Siri, which can converse with iPhone owners, was the apple of Apple's eye decades before yesterday's announcement.
In 1987, Apple released a video showing its prediction of a voice-based personal assistant on a touchscreen computer.
In the video a professor goes over his schedule with his touchscreen computer's virtual assistant.
The professor's calendar says it's September 16. When he asks his virtual assistant for a research paper from five years ago, the assistant pulls up a paper from 2006.
That means the 1987 video was set to take place in September 2011, just one month before Apple will actually release the same voice-based assistant technology.
The eerie coincidence was not lost on social media. @TechCrunch called it "Siri-ous Mind Blowing," and @jws7 says it's a "Spooky future prediction from Apple."
But not all the predictions about the iPhone were that accurate. Most were downright wrong. The big expectation was a release of an iPhone 5 (not 4S).
Many also thought Sprint would get an exclusive deal on the iPhone 5, but it got a nonexclusive deal for the iPhone 4S.
Speculators also buzzed about Apple releasing a Facebook iPad app, which didn't happen either. Anonymous tips, mockups, and leaked Chinese phone cases spurred rumors about a new tapered design that would be thinner and lighter than the current model.
It turns out that the iPhone 4S looks exactly like the iPhone 4 but weighs a little more. Rumors also swirled about multiple models of the iPhone coming out and a bigger screen.
Both of those predictions fell flat. So, are you disappointed with the release of the iPhone 4S instead of the iPhone 5? Are you going to get one?
