The Siri app on Apple’s iPhone 4S lets you use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, and more. You can ask Siri to do things just by talking to it and Siri understands what you say, knows what you mean, and answers. You can say something like, “Tell my husband I’m running late” or “Remind me to call the vet” or even “Any good burger joints around here?” Siri does what you say, finds the information you need, then answers you. It’s like you’re having a conversation with your iPhone. If Siri does not understand your question, it will keep asking you questions until it does understand.
Another great feature of the voice activated Siri is it takes dictation to get tasks like dictation done. Instead of typing, tap the microphone icon on the keyboard, say what you need to say, tap “Done”, and iPhone converts your words into text. You can write messages, take notes, search the web, and more. Dictation also works with third-party apps, so you can update your Facebook status, tweet, or write and send Instagrams.
Siri uses almost all the built-in apps on iPhone 4S so it can write and send email messages and texts. It searches the web for information, gives you directions and shows you around, places calls, schedules meetings, helps you remember, and wakes you up. Siri will even volutarily tell you all of it’s features so that you don’t have to seek them out.
True Knowledge has developed a new app called Evi that was released in January of this year. Evi has a lot of the same capabilities of Siri, and Apple is asking True Knowledge to remove Evi from the App Store because it is too similar to Siri.
A few of the differences between Evi and Siri are that Evi sources its responses from True Knowledge’s database of billions of machine-comprehensible “facts.” True Knowledge describes Evi’s main focus as “conversational search,” whereas Siri is more about directly hooking into phone functionality. For example, Siri has access to iOS 5 features like Calendar, Contacts and Reminders. Evi can also be operated through voice and keyboard input, while Siri is voice-only. Evi is also currently available in the App Store for all iPhone models, whereas Siri is strictly for the iPhone 4S.
Although iPhone technology is proprietary, Android training courses are great sources of technical training for app development. Apps are becoming more and more sophisticated, and developing ones that become popular can bring huge rewards.
For more information about Siri and Evi, go to Wired.com.
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Deanna says
I have seen these commercials where they are using Siri. On the one commercial he tells the phone to call him Rock God from now on is that something that it will actually do? I like the idea of having the option to speak into it or use the keyboard so Evi doesn’t sound all that bad really. Did they remove it from the app. store like they were asked to?
FireStarter says
Hi Deanna, The Siri app will actually call you a “Rock God” if you ask it to! Evi is still available at the Apple App Store right now. I believe Apple has decided to try to work with True Knowledge and are asking them to modify the app to make it more unique for users.
Jon says
The innovation of Siri could bring up philosophical questions concerning how far humankind will be willing to go to advance technology. Is this the beginning of artificial intelligence available on the consumer market? I realize that the pursuit of technology is designed to improve our comfort and our every day life. But what happens when we allow the very inventions designed to enhance our world, penetrate the most intimate parts of our lives. Will we forfeit our very soul?
FireStarter says
Hi Jon, The issues you raise are our modern day dilemmas we are having to deal with for the first time, outside of futuristic movies. It is interesting that with today’s technology, a person doesn’t need to hire a private investigator any longer as any information you want to find about someone is pretty much available on line with a little digging. I don’t think we can stop the train though, I think we just need to figure out ways to harness the information that is available.