The iPhone 4S’ digital assistant, Siri, is not actually pro-life — Apple says a glitch is responsible for the phone’s failure to direct users to abortion clinics in cities like New York and Washington.
Apple took some heat this week when users discovered that Siri could direct you to a strip club or escort service, but not, say, a Planned Parenthood clinic, Raw Story pointed out Tuesday. The ACLU even started a petition asking Apple to update its software, and NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation urged Apple to provide more information about the software, the Washington Post reports.
Stephen Colbert did his part, too, praising the “arch conservative” digital assistant because it’s also not great at recognizing foreign accents.
An Apple spokeswoman told The New York Times that Siri’s glitches aren’t meant to offend anyone. “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,” Natalie Kerris said. “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.”
David Taintor
David Taintor is the Front Page Editor at TPM, where he contributes to TPM's Livewire coverage, among other areas. David is from Chanhassen, Minnesota, where, yes, it gets very cold. Reach him at taintor [at] talkingpointsmemo.com
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