Apple and Verizon: Did Apple Spoil Verizon’s Siri Plans?

Apple and Verizon: Many people rely on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s Siri to provide them with fast, accurate information. But did you know that the tech giant almost missed out on a deal to purchase Siri? Even more interesting is this: Verizon was the company that was going to make a deal for the voice-controlled technology.

For more information on the history of Siri, take a closer look at this historical breakdown from the Huffington Post. In the article, author Bianca Bosker talks about the deal with Verizon that almost went through.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Press Info

“Verizon thought so, too. In the fall of 2009, several months before Apple approached Siri, Verizon had signed a deal with the startup to make Siri a default app on all Android phones set to launch in the new year. When Apple swooped in to buy Siri, it insisted on making the assistant exclusive to Apple devices, and nixed the Verizon deal. In the process, it narrowly avoided seeing Siri become a selling point for smartphones powered by its biggest rival, Google. (Somewhere in the vaults of the wireless giant, there are unreleased commercials touting Siri as an Android add-on.)”

This is quite interesting. Not only was Verizon going to purchase Siri, but it was going to be made the default app on all Android phones. Imagine that. We could be sitting here today with one of Apples’s biggest competitors taking full advantage of the voice controlled assistant. Can you imagine how much different the smartphone space would be?

Fortunately for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) the company was able to swoop in, steal the deal from Verizon and use Siri exclusively on the iPhone. Once again, a brilliant move by the tech giant.

AppleInsider added some more information to the story: