Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) might have disappointed the hordes of people dying to get
their hands on an iPhone 5 when it announced the new iPhone 4S on Tuesday, but
the company still managed to impress with new apps. Particularly impressive is
Siri, Apples new voice-command app that lets you literally talk to your iPhone.
Need to know how bad traffic is in your area? Just ask the phone, and Siri will
give you real-time data on traffic outside. However, Apple forgot the cardinal
rule of language-based technology: If you build it, your audience is going to
make lewd jokes with it. And Apples new app made it all too easy for people to
turn it into a joke, considering what Siri sounds like in Japanese. Heres a
hint: The iPhone 4S almost certainly will be Sir Mix-a-Lots favorite smartphone.
To Japan, the name Siri sounds almost identical to 尻, pronounced shiri . Shiri
is a colloquialism for in the politest possible sense buttocks. Its proper
usage, however, is crude. As Yoree Koh of The Wall Street Journal put it, the
comparable term in English rhymes with crass. Compliments for Apples major new
technology, likely to be the focus of marketing campaigns across the world, will
make the speaker sound like a cat-calling construction worker in Japan. Shortly
after Siri was announced, both Siri and shiri became trending topics on Twitter
in Japan. Google Japan searches for Apples new voice recognition software had
the search engine asking users if they actually were looking for shiri, and it
isnt difficult to imagine what the image search returned on those queries. Given
Apples flair for branding, its surprising that the company didnt know about this
potential gaffe before announcing Siri to the world. Japan is, after all, a
major market for the company. The iPhone itself was the first major smartphone
success in the country, capturing 72% of the Japanese smartphone market by the
middle of 2010. Although Google (NASDAQ: GOOG ) Android phones have narrowed the
gap in 2011, diminishing Apples share of the total market to 38%, Japan still is
a major market for Apple. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company shipped 3.23
million iPhones in the country in the last fiscal year. When your biggest mobile
operating system competitor has crushed your lead in less than 12 months, it
probably isnt the best idea to name a major new feature of iOS after butts. This
is Apple, though. The iPhone 4S and Siri should prove as popular as previous
Apple mobile products named after someones rear or not. As of this writing,
Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.
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