Disqus
Siri, which was founded as a company during the same year that the first iPhone launched, was acquired by Apple in April 2010. When the iPhone 4S was unveiled 18 months later, Siri was one of the key features demoed on stage. What is it? In case you’ve been living under a rock, Siri is a voice enabled virtual assistant. Tell it to wake you up tomorrow at 07:00 and it’ll set an alarm for you. Ask it to send a text message to your partner saying you’ll be late and it’ll do that too. Samsung, looking to respond to Siri, revealed S Voice during their announcement of the Galaxy S III last month. It’s not as good as Siri, and a lot less functional, but at least it’s something. Earlier today we reported that LG has announced Quick Voice, another Siri clone, which sadly only works in Korean.
The big question is when will Google launch their own take on Siri and bundle it inside Android? According to The Wall Street Journal, the search giant “has accelerated plans” to bring their voice enabled virtual assistant to market. They don’t provide any concrete dates, but let’s speculate, shall we? Next week Google is going to hold their annual I/O conference. It’s widely expected that that’s where they’ll show off a new $200 Nexus Tablet. They might also show off the next version of Android, Jelly Bean, but history has shown that they usually hold off on such announcements until the fourth quarter of the year when it comes time to announce the next Nexus device. We’re pretty confident that Google’s Siri will be out by the end of the year, we’re just unsure about the details concerning when it’ll happen, which devices will be supported, and most importantly how well it will work.
Oh and let’s not forget, Google will likely let developers take advantage of voice in a much more open way than Apple, who right now prefers to hook Siri up to certain backends, but doesn’t let app developers interface with Siri directly.
About The Author
Stefan Constantinescu
Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.
