Siri, the talking personal assistant app on the iPhone 4S, is getting rave reviews, though some find Siri a bit flawed.  Most are mesmerized by the witty remarks Siri offers, making you feel like you’re talking to an actual person who thinks, and not just a computer program.  And with Apple’s latest TV ad demonstrating how easy it is to use Siri, even for a child, I bet more people would want to try her out.  But even as Siri rises in popularity, becoming the most notable improvement to the iPhone 4S, the software company acquired by Apple is losing one of its leaders.

Siri was founded in 2007 by Dag Kittlaus (CEO), Adam Cheyer (VP Engineering), and Tom Gruber (CTO/VP Design) together with Norman Winarsky from SRI International‘s venture group.  Siri is said to be from the SRI International Artificial Intelligence Center and the DARPA-funded CALO project, making it the biggest artificial intelligence project to date.

Apple bought Siri in 2010 and not long after that acquisition, Siri teamed up with Wolfram Alpha to greatly improve results.

But with Siri’s popularity, the person behind her stardom decided to take a backseat.  According to All Things D, Kittlaus left Siri and Apple.  It’s said his departure has been planned for some time now, but the main reason for his leaving is that Kittlaus’ family is in Chicago and he wants to take some time off before venturing into new endeavors.

Kittlaus was the only who abandoned Apple’s ship, as the Siri staff will remain in the confines of Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino.

Siri’s impact on Android and beyond

If Fandroids want to have a bit of fun like Apple users are having with Siri, they can try out Edwin, Speech-To-Speech, Speaktoit and Vlingo Virtual Assistant.  These apps enable you to send text, email or write text using voice though, of the three, Vlingo doesn’t talk back.  One review stated that he wished Speaktoit didn’t talk as well, as it can offer up some rather absurd comments at times.

Everyone wants to try out these voice recognition apps, but is this just a phase?  If Apple is able to iron out all of Siri’s flaws, like the language setting and more accurate speech recognition, I think Siri would be sticking around for quite a long time.  The greatest potential of Siri’s inclusion in the iPhone 4S is its ongoing data research and learning as it interacts with millions of real humans around the world.  It’s a social experiment in big data, and it’s one that will change the way we utilize electronic devices from this day forward.