Apple's CEO Offers Very Familiar Apology for the Siri Abortion Thing

Reuters
Eric Randall 1,947 Views Dec 1, 2011

After Apple's spokesperson called the fact that voice-command robot Siri has trouble finding abortion clinics a "glitch" that will be fixed, Apple's CEO Tim Cook offered his own apology to Nancy Keenan, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, who wrote him a complaint letter, reports BetaBeat. There was a small controversy when Raw Story wrote that Apple's Siri has trouble directing people to abortion clinics upon request. But Cook's letter to Keenan feels awfully familiar. He wrote:

Nancy,

Thanks for your note.

Our customers use Siri to find out all types of information and while it can find a lot, it doesn’t always find what you want. 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.

I appreciate you pointing this out.

Best Regards, Tim

Meanwhile, Apple's official statement earlier today reads:

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,” said Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Apple, in a phone interview late Wednesday. “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.

Even if he's just putting forth the same statement (which we imagine he approved in the first place), we guess just sending it is a personal touch. 

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at erandall at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.

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