With Siri still dominating the nascent cosmos of voice recognition apps, will TellMe or Majel be able to prove their mettle?
The dawn of 2011 gave momentum to the frail voice recognition ability to search engines and smartphones but the tremors were felt amongst the Android and Windows Phone eco-system when Siri was born in August last year.
Siri, did manage to impress the masses it and most of us were aw-struck by its sheer abilities.
But when people actually laid their hands on the device and use this intelligent app the reviews varied between the two extremes.
For some Siri a charm to use, they feel its the ‘mojo’ of their phone, for others, well, they are still trying to comprehend with it in the accent it understands.
App developers and mobile OS giants started working on this new dimension ravenously and came up with multiple apps out of which I am enlisting a few that managed to get our attention.
Evi (iPhone - $0.99/Android - Free)
Evi by True Knowledge which promotes itself as ‘revolutionary artificial intelligence’ is based on the web site’s own search engine and licensed voice recognition software from Nuance. Apparently, the voice behind Siri is also powered by software from Nuance. Evi is a boon for those who do not own an iPhone 4S and would like to use a voice based phone assistant. Evi works well if you need to dig out general information using voice search, but, Evi is unable to set up meetings or read out text message to you like Siri does.
Also, Evi gives this frustrating “I’m having trouble getting a response from my servers” error message frequently which squeezes out the excitement one gets from a voice recognition app.
TellMe (Windows Phone)
Microsoft has been working with TellMe to bring voice based information search to not only phones, but PC, TV, Cars and of course Windows 8. So, this integrated app has advantages in its multi-platform uses. This comes as a default with all next generation Windows phones available today. It uses a pretty standard set of commands and works well if you need to open or start a specific application via speech. But is it still incomparable to Siri.
Dragon Go (iPhone, Android - Free)
Another voice based app from Nuance Communications, Dragon Go, does not speak back to you and gives you plate full of results for your simplest of search queries. It gives you results from numerous websites including Ask.com, YouTube, ESPN, LiveNation, OpenTable, Pandora etc. in a tabbed interface. So, even if you are not content with what pops-up on the centre tab after you fired your query, you can simply swipe left or right to get more (and maybe) relevant results. Give it a try, it’s gotta 4+ rating on iTunes.
Iris (Android - Free)
A well suited app for the playful user, Iris is very popular with Android users and its creators Dexetra is thankful for a million downloads of the app in just two months. With more than 46,000 satisfied users, Iris is rated 4 on the Android market.
If you watch the video above, you will see that the app creators have a tendency to specifically demonstrate typical search queries on their product which Siri cannot execute in its current state. They hardly ever compare how the two AI bots fare when asked a standard question that both apps can definitely process and give results for. (Time to think?)
Ask Ziggy (Windows Phone - Free)
Ask Ziggy serves many functions that are absent from Siri (finally, we are getting somewhere), like status updates, directions, general queries and even mathematical queries. The looks and the voice throughput are a downer. Even Metro UI is unable to help us like the boring looks of the app.
There are plans to make Ziggy better. Language translations, multilingual support and developing the grammar recognition will be available in next version(s) of the app.
Cora (Windows Phone - Pending App Hub Approval)
The yet to be launched app developed by Jeremiah Isaacson, Cora aims to improve what Ask Ziggy has been able to deliver. It is again based on Nuance voice recognition technology and borrows a lot of it’s design from Siri. It is too soon to comment on the app which has not been officially released yet, but we do have a preview of its abilities.
One point that I would like to mention here is that the developer(s) creating apps for Windows phone should use the power of Metro UI, its the USP of any Windows mobile device and any app that follows this latest UX feels seamlessly integrated with the phone.
Last, but certainly not the least…
Majel (all Google devices)
Banking on the ability to understand commands given in natural language and diction, Google’s Majel, would be a radically altered and evolved version of Google’s Voice Actions. Majel, named after Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, the voice of the on-board computer from Star Trek is expected to release by the end of this year.
Will this be the ultimate answer to Siri or will the cold-war that has existed between Google’s Android and iPhone continue forever after?
[VIA][VIA][VIA][VIA][VIA][VIA]
Udit Hotchandani
I'm a technology enthusiast and mobile fanatic from India. I love sharing my knowledge with others. "I am still waiting for some company to like my work and send me a model of their latest mobile device for review" :) My twitter handle is @udit_h On Facebook, I am available at http://www.facebook.com/udit.hotchandani
0 comments:
Post a Comment