Yes as usual Apple will claim to have created a revolutionary and innovative application. Seems Siri is a major marketing ploy to help shift Iphone 4s, since it's a 4s exclusive (at least for the time being)

There is nothing new about Siri, Android have had Vlingo since the middle of last year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0GRvOmJ5Mg Vlingo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNsrl86inpo Siri

Very little difference between the two. The next time Apple decide to sue another company for copying their innovations, they had better keep quiet, as they had done with the notifications pane, they are on a roll now. It's not so much they are also taking other's innovations, but passing it off as their own. Now that's what stinks!

Actually I read earlier that there was Siri app on the Apple store for all iPhone users, but now Apple have pulled it. Making it exclusive for 4S users.

So it's not new to Apple either, just now they are making a big song and a dance out of it, while at the same time screwing over legacy customers.

Siri has been around since Feb 2010, so before your VLingo.

Apple bought the company in April 2010 and the code from the people who developed it. Siri was (until yesterday) already an iPhone App available for iOS 3.0+ but is now exclusive to 4S. So while I agree with you that it's a sales gimmick, I think it's wrong to say Apple copied Android here.

As of now, Vlingo is still available for the iPhone from the Apple App store. It gets lots of very critical reviews and relatively few positive ones.

If it's still there it's an old version that hasn't been updated in a long time.

It's been around long before that, Orange had it years ago before smart phones as call up /answer phone/pa service called Wildfire even back then it worked quite well.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07...ange_wildfire/

Had Vlingo on my old 3GS, been around a long time.
Not knocking Apple as I use a lot of their products, but they do like to claim everything is "Revolutionary & Magic".
I've never even used Facetime on my old iPhone 4, much as i never used it when it was called Video Calling on all my other handsets.
I've also never used Voice Control on the iPhone as its normally does something you have not asked it too.

Siri better be good, as current voice control stuff sucks.
Sometimes it works on my android, but mostly comes up with some utter rubbish its guessed at

I don't think Apple said at any point yesterday 'this is ground breaking, it's never been seen or done before' either about this product. I think people just look for any excuse to jump up and down on Apple.

Didnt all android 2.2 systems have google voice recognition. You could send text messages using voice commands and everything.

Yup, but doesn't work very well...for me anyway

At the end of the day nobody is forcing some of you to go and buy the new 4S, so i don't understand why most on here are complaining etc...

isn't the point here that although voice recognition has been around for ages, Siri is supposed to be way better at understanding what people mean in plain English, and also in the context of previous requests rather than specific commands, combined with its integration with location services?

for example will i need an umbrella today? will bring up the weather for where you are.

or if you ask for italian restaurants nearby it might draw a blank, and you can say what about tacos? and it will know you're still talking about restaurants.

whilst voice recognition has been around for years, has it been quite this clever for years?

Iain

Ok I stand correct on the siri pre-dating vlingo but ad others pointed out the tech is nothing new but Apple are making a song and dance out it like it is revolutionary kinda sucks. Also why is it a 4s exclusive now? That's very unfair to people who have the older models and will no doubt have ios5 so what gives??

The point is that being first isn't always enough. You might win a prize but you might not make any money. If Apple thinks something is good enough to devote ten minutes of a product launch to it, then it's probably good enough to make money for them.

Fact is wether it's new or not Apple will make it work well. Clearly this is the case as i'm hearing great things about Siri but I didn't even know about the Andriod 'version'

'it just works'

That's the part that will make it worth having.

To easy

I've been trying out the voice control on my SGS2 for the first time, out of curiosity due to the arguments over Apples offering.......I was surprised how well it worked......I'll put it away again now my curiosity has been satisfied.

Android voice control is amazing. I assume Apple will use cloud processing too for accuracy.
Will next up will be Apple maps?

Apple Latitude was part of the 'new' features unveiled in the presentation. "Find my friends" or something similar.



I used Wildfire! It was great for me, no 'press 1 to delete..press 2' etc, just "save that" or "delete that". The problem was it was unintuitive for people leaving messages.

You had to say your name first, then a message, so when I called up, Wildfire would say "You have a message from "John Smith" ". Unfortunately what happened was I'd get "You have a message from "Hello mate just called to say.." "

Whilst Siri seems to be a nice implementation, the examples given seem very contrived - does anyone wanting to know the forecast ask "will I need an umbrella today"? Still, means we Androiders will probably get a new Vlingo version (or Google Voice search, not sure which is better right now) in the next few months.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4amvR...eature=related

this is a better indication of vlingo's planned(?) functionality. Again, much of a muchness, unless you want to talk to Siri and say "hey Siri tell my homies 'I'm outta here' as soon as I'm out da door dude".

Voice recognition is not even new on iOS devices, but it kinda sucked. It remains to be seen how accurate and 'intelligent' Siri is in practice and how contextual Apple's implementation is. Also it will probably benefit from OS integration.

It is nothing new as Viingo has been available on Android devices for years.

Interesting to see how well Apple's VR works.

I'm betting it will be pretty good.

Apple's list of things you can say to Siri includes "Search for vegetarian pasta recipes", "What is an 18% tip on $86.74 for four people?" and "When is the next solar eclipse?".

Not to mention "Where are all my friends?", to which the answer is probably "You have friends?"

Some of it reminds me of

www.cleverbot.com