Siri for Android?

19 Dec, 2011Android, Apple, Apps
Siri for Android?

When the iPhone 4S was announced and Siri was introduced to the world, everyone became amazed at what could be done. The fact that you could take your phone and set reminders for yourself to go off as soon as you get home as it would verify via the GPS, were not only amazing but many thought impossible to be accurate. Apple once again surprised us all and came out with a very impressive app that exceeded expectations. The commercials do not give justice to just how great this tool is for owners of the iPhone 4S and most notably, ones that tend to forget about things far too often.

Android, which is Apple’s biggest competitor when it comes to the mobile market found it necessary to try to fight back and come out with their own brand of Siri. One tool they came up with, literally in the matter of 8 hours was something called Iris, which is basically Siri spelled backwards. While this was not on the same level of the Siri app for the iPhone, it was a quick step in the right direction for hardcore Android owners. Iris does have some functionality missing that makes Siri such an appealing application, such as the reminders setting within the application. It does all of the basics such as you mention a location and it will give you results or ask to lookup a word and it will follow your command, however Iris has a long way to go to rival Siri.Another tool that has just recently come available for Android devices is something called Cluzee. The app is available in the Android market for the very cheap price tag of free and actually offers some things that Siri does not offer. A couple of the great features that customers could use on an everyday basis is calorie and exercise intake as well as finding alternate routes for potential traffic jams. These features are not available with the iPhone Siri app.However much like any app out there, especially one in the beginning of its life cycle, there are tons of bugs that need to be worked out before it can become a formidable opponent to Siri. One of the immediate complaints is the constant crashing of the application after asking multiple questions. It also has an issue with properly understanding the user and often gives wrong results for the questions asked. This is to be expected for such short notice.The fact remains that while Apple and Android continue to fight it out on the mobile market, they will continue to do whatever they can to out sell the other one. When one comes out with a cool new feature, you can bet that the other will be next in line to come out with their version of the feature and up the bar even higher. For mobile users this is great, because nothing gives you more bang for your buck than a healthy competition between the competitors.

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