Verizon planned to make Siri an Android exclusive before Apple purchase

Before Apple swooped in to purchase Siri, U.S. carrier Verizon was working on a deal that would make the intelligent voice-controlled assistant exclusive to Android devices on its network.

The details were revealed in a look at the history of Siri, published this week by the Huffington Post. Author Bianca Bosker revealed that Verizon actually signed a deal with Siri in the fall of 2009 months before Apple bought the company.

That deal would have made Siri a built-in application for handsets on its network running the Android mobile operating system. Siri would have come preinstalled on all Android devices the carrier launched in 2010.

But before that could become a reality, Apple bought Siri and made the feature exclusive to Apple devices. Apple's purchase nixed the deal Verizon had already made with Siri.

Siri exclusivity on Verizon and Android was apparently so close to becoming a reality that there are unreleased commercials made by the carrier that show off Siri as an Android feature.

Siri eventually debuted in late 2011 as a built-in feature on the iPhone 4S. Apple's purchase of Siri first became known publicly in April of 2010.

While Siri started out as an iPhone-exclusive feature, it has since expanded to the iPad and iPod touch. The voice-controlled assistant offers information such as weather, dictation, sports scores, calendar entries and more.

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