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Siri Envy? Iris Brings Some Voice-Assistant Features to Android
Of all the upgrades that distinguish the new iPhone 4S from its predecessors, probably the feature that's gotten the most attention is the voice-based personal assistant app called Siri, which allows a user to accomplish certain tasks almost entirely by voice. A few days ago, as reported by TechCrunch, a team of Android developers came up with an Android equivalent to Siri called Iris (spell that backwards). It took them only 8 hours to have a working, if imperfect, app to play with and submit to the Android Market. This quick video review of Iris says the app is unpolished, but shows promise. For now, it generates some accurate results, and some amusing ones.
Siri was developed from technology created at the SRI in Palo Alto. It was a company which used technology spun of from CALO and PAL, two major (and intertwined) research initiatives funded partially by public funds. Siri spun off and began developing for iOs, Android and the Blackberry.
Apple simply bought Siri and shut down development for Android and the Blackberry. The core technologies remain available at https://pal.sri.com/Plone - it is not a matter of Apple having developed anything original at all.
Siri is much more than voice recognition. However, it was not developed by Apple. It was a 3rd party application created out of a bigger AI product, and was originally going to target all the smartphone platforms. Apple simply bought the firm and the technology, and shut down development for other platforms.
It's close enough for spec-sheet comparisons, which is pretty much what many Android manufacturers (and more than a few fans of the platform) fall back on.
Butbubut, it's got Super-Ultra-XVSAMOLED, 4+MEGA LTE-MAX and 2TB of flash. As soon as Fruitcake or Peach Flan comes out, it'll totally crush iOS!! Well, yeah, right now it might be a little buggy, and yeah, the interface hangs on occasion, and perhaps it's limited to 3G until the manufacturer releases an update that your carrier might not actually support, but the potential is there! Honest!
Disclosure: I have, and really like, my BlackBerry 9900; I've no skin in this game per se, but Apple really does present a cohesive, usable platform with most of the rough edges filed off. Maybe, maybe ICS will have closed the gap, but this kind of relentless focus on user experience isn't really Android's forte any more than Ubuntu comes even remotely close to Mac OS X.
Disclosure 2: I own both a PlayBook, iPad and LG Optimus Pad. The first and last, despite having box specs that more or less than meet Apple's unit, don't best the daily experience. For example, the PlayBook can play back 1080p; the iPad can maybe manage 720p, but the PlayBook's browser stutters and it's a bastard to type on and it lacks native e-mail. The LG has an even more broken browser (yes, you can get alternatives; they're not much better than stock) and a marginally-better keyboard, and the home screen stutters. How, in this day and age, can you ship a tablet with a subpar browser and mail client, when the 800lb Gorilla in the market nails all the basics perfectly. So they can both play back 1080p and both support Flash? So what?
Half-assed chasing of Siri is the same kind of thing. Apple doesn't own a big chunk of the market (and a bigger chunk of it's profits) because they have the most powerful, first out of the blocks and/or most open. They're doing it because their stuff doesn't exceed consumers' fiddle tolerance.
--srj/mmv
Apple didn't shout "Me too!". They quietly demonstrated how well it worked.
There are people who are going to think Apple did it first, just like they do with GUIs, smartphones and tablets. The onus is on the whole rest of the industry to start delivering products and services that work as well as Apple's do so that Apple can't keep using that strategy. Currently, the whole rest of the industry seems content to look like chumps and, yes, "Me-too"-ists.
--srj/mmv
The core technology is available for download from SRI's website. Siri had exclusive licensing within a domain, but that was with the understanding that it would be cross-platform in the smart-phone sector. If Apple doesn't restart development for Android etc., it may make an interesting case whether they can keep exclusivity on non-iOs platforms.
Android voice recognition is equivalent to voice commands. "Open Internet Explorer... Highlight Search Box... Type 'weather, return.'"
Siri is a heck of a lot more interesting. Siri is a first grasp at understanding intent. "Is it going to rain tomorrow?" "Text my wife that I'll be there in 5 minutes." "Remind me at 6PM tomorrow to call the doctor." "How do I get home?"
Now, it's not perfect. Siri is damned slow, when it runs at all. And it works a lot better in the sorts of quiet places where you probably shouldn't be talking into a phone. And it was bought by apple, rather than being initially developed by them. But it's interesting in that it forms relational databases about the world around you, and starts to correlate bits of information. It's not just voice recognition, it's meaning recognition.
The ______ Agenda
I have an HTC Evo and an Apple iPad, so I'm well aware of the capabilities and limitations of both Android and iOS. Yes, there are some rough edges on Android, but there are rough edges on iOS as well. Copy and paste doesn't work very well, multitasking is (by design) mostly nonexistent, and there are many missing features. (For example, I would fuck a water buffalo to get Swype on iOS.) Cursor positioning is also better on Android.
This idea that Apple products are magically easy-to-use and perfectly polished is BS. They are good products, usually with fantastic industrial design, and usually very attractive to look at. But there's no magic to the user interface, and Android is really every bit as good.
Like Apple did when they introduced Siri? ...cuz, Android had voice recognition and commands long ago. Admittedly, Siri is superior... now. But, DON'T EVEN.
Are you sure about that? Apple released Voice control with the iPhone 3GS on June 19, 2009 and demoed it on Jun 8, 2009. Google followed with Voice Commands in Froyo (2.2) about a year later but supporting only a fraction of the languages supported by the Apple feature.
Siri is more advanced than Voice Control/Voice Commands in that it understands natural language, can remember things like who your wife is, where your work is and where home is and then follow commands in the future when you mention those things. It also is able to follow the context of a conversation. So if you ask about London, England in the previous question and then ask "What's the weather like today", Siri infers that you are asking about London instead of where you currently are unless if you say "What's the weather like here?".
Siri is the off shoot of work at DARPA with SRI international on the PAL/CALO project. PAL stand for Personal Assistant that Learns. Good luck implementing AI in a couple of days.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.