Nokia accuses Apple of overriding Siri’s software to name iPhone the best smartphone

When Apple’s voice-activated assistant Siri has been asked over the weekend “What is the best smartphone ever?”, it appeared to favor the iPhone’s rival, Nokia’s Lumia 900.

But Siri now responds to the same question with a jovial: “Wait… there are other phones?”

Nokia has accused Apple of “overriding the software” after the quirk was noticed.

Apple would not confirm that a change had been made.

The Siri software, which is featured on Apple’s iPhone 4S, uses the computational search engine Wolfram Alpha to serve answers to some questions.

For a question such as “what is the best smartphone ever?”, Wolfram Alpha would pool available reviews and comment in order to come up with what it feels is the right result.

In this instance, the “best” result was determined by reviews on the website of US retailer Best Buy.

Nokia’s Lumia 900 came out on top.

However, when asked the same question, the software no longer attempts to search Wolfram Alpha to find its answer, instead producing a default answer.

Nokia spokeswoman Tracey Postill told the Sydney Morning Herald: “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.”

However, Nokia said Tracey Postill’s comments were “lighthearted” and “taken out of context”.

“We were certainly flattered and honored,” Nokia spokesman Doug Dawson added.