Posted on Friday, October 21 2011 @ 20:04 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
I Programmer
reports Iris has hit the Android App Store. This new application was put together in just eight hours and aims to provide the same functionality as Siri. Iris isn't perfect but shows that Siri doesn't really give Apple a big edge over other phones at all.
The point here is that Siri is almost an off-the-shelf, clip-together app - a mashup in the true sense of the term. As such it really isn't an edge for Apple.
As if to prove the point, a small group of adventurous programmers at Dextra decided to put together Iris (Siri spelled backwards) in a few hours, about 8 in total. The result is a Siri-like program that isn't quite up to scratch but what do you expect in 8 hours. You can talk to it and it answers your questions as best it can.
You can even try it out for yourself by downloading it from the Android Market. It clearly isn't currently well integrated with other Android apps, but it could be, and it is a proof in principle that Siri isn't anything special and certainly isn't another plus point for the iPhone.
