Amazon Acquires Siri-Challenger 'Evi' for $26 Million?

Hopefully that means Apple will step up their game with Siri. It is cumbersome and frustrating. Especially when you "call home" and it thinks for two minutes.

Glad Evi is getting some backing it was fairly good but lacked someone big to fund improvements. Altho wouldn't be at all surprised if this was a tech and staff purchase for Amazon's Android fork.

Most people I know including myself just use Siri for the first day or so.

JDee said:

Most people I know including myself just use Siri for the first day or so.

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I tried it out a few times turned it off after the first day tho.

That Siri license has to expire sometime. Hence the paultry $23m purchase price. This is a "bridge event" purchase by Amazon. Clearly all Apple competitors agree Siri was a coup.

I wonder if Nuance, which is independent of Apple has some contract with Apple after the failed acquisition effort which is both long term and binding?

Rocketman

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JDee said:

Most people I know including myself just use Siri for the first day or so.

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Me too, but for a visually challenged friend, it changed her entire life. It is a matter of adjusting behavior to benefit from "eyes free' activity.

Siri is like your pet cat. It trains you.

Rocketman

rmwebs said:

Glad Evi is getting some backing it was fairly good but lacked someone big to fund improvements. Altho wouldn't be at all surprised if this was a tech and staff purchase for Amazon's Android fork.

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I would be surprise if it isnt part of amazon android plataform in the future.

Remember all, Siri is still in "beta"!

They will use Evi for their phone in the future? (If they bring one out to the market.)

I feel like they should rename it; it needs a name that doesn't even resemble Siri. Why? Because it's always going to be looked at as a copy of Siri with such a similar name. Let's forget about the fact that siri was never a unique idea, but it's all about perspective. People are familiar with Siri. Now we have Evi (yes, I know it's been around for a while), and people who just hear the name and what it can do might think, "oh yeah, a Siri clone".

Any competition to Siri would be GREAT!

Siri is a great tool and I use it often but it's dreadfully slow and very hit or miss. Not to mention just hangs. Wish some of these third party apps would be able to integrate with the phone a little better though. Seems most of these apps are only various versions of web searches. Would be nice to use them to set timers, events, send/read texts and such.

lol i forgot i had siri on my iphone and im not kidding

Siri is terrible so this would be welcomed. although, I rarely use Siri except for appointments.

Cue new Apple commercial.

Apple : Hi I'm Siri.

Amazon : And I'm Evi.

JDee said:

Most people I know including myself just use Siri for the first day or so.

Click to expand...

I use Siri daily, specifically when I'm driving, for dictating text messages, directions, entering calendar entries, setting location-based reminders, etc.

I like Google voice searching on my iPhone. She's faster, more accurate, and doesn't sound like she's been smoking cigarettes for 20 years.

I'd love for Apple to get serious about Siri or allow us to choose a voice search for our phone like we can choose a default browser/mail client on our Macs. Ditto for maps.

Siri is actually pretty useful but mostly if you play to its strengths. Hearing/sending text messages through my car bluetooth is very nice and much safer! And quick almanac lookups (like what day is April 27) is handy when you're in the middle of a few things.

What I don't like is when it can't read your contacts right. For example, I might want to send a message to Nikki but it says it can't find a Nicki in my contacts. I ask for Nikki again and it figures it out. I only have one Nikki in my contacts and it can figure it out on the second attempt. Shouldn't take two attempts.

I hope some more competition can get Apple to really polish up this feature. If they can make it smoother and more useful it would be a big boon and not a novelty or a limited-use feature.

I wonder if we are getting to a point where companies will soon out-Apple Apple. Most of Apple's newer features have been a dime short of awesome and competitors are coming to close that gap.

nwcs said:

What I don't like is when it can't read your contacts right. For example, I might want to send a message to Nikki but it says it can't find a Nicki in my contacts. I ask for Nikki again and it figures it out. I only have one Nikki in my contacts and it can figure it out on the second attempt. Shouldn't take two attempts.

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You can improve this by entering phonetic data in Contacts on your iPhone. Edit a contact and choose Add Field... It can make Siri much more useful.

I use Siri daily, mostly to schedule reminders. It works great for that. Calendar entries are frustrating. If I mention a name, she wants to email that person to set up a meeting. It needs to get much better. Evi I used for a couple days before I had a Siri-enabled phone. It was terrible. And that one eyed emoticon thing creeped me out.

I didn't use Siri much when it first came out. Lately I've been using it a lot as it has improved voice recognition by far. I use it in my car via bluetooth; simply press the home button and I'm handsfree. It hasn't made a single error in dictating texts, emails, or commands as it had. Great to choose a song by name or artist, etc. Also good for reminders when I am close to a destination (given it's in my contacts).

Honestly, as much as I hated Siri when it first released (and it had to be legally in "beta" stage in order to collect much data from its user base), the improvements have been profound enough to make it very useful.

Awesome. More info towards siri the better.

I really want Siri to do reminders without having the address in your contacts. So i can say "When i get to Wal-Mart...." it would recommend on the map. i could select the walmart then add it

yadmonkey said:

You can improve this by entering phonetic data in Contacts on your iPhone. Edit a contact and choose Add Field... It can make Siri much more useful.

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Beware of a ridiculous bug that has existed for a long time with this. Phonetic names change the alphabetizing in contacts. My sister's last name is Jaca. When I put in Haka as a phonetic pronunciation, it moves her contact down into the H area. How stupid is that?

I use the crap out of Siri for quite a few things. It is pretty much one of my favorite things about the iPhone. My biggest gripe is probably the remote processing. Sometimes it works perfect, and others it fails because of cell signal or whatever. I think we can expect much bigger strides with siri and siri like tech in the coming releases. With processors constantly making enormous leaps forward each year, I wouldn't be suprised if we see a combination of much more powerful processor, more ram, and in concert with iOS7... have Siri start processing locally on the handset.

Nunyabinez said:

Beware of a ridiculous bug that has existed for a long time with this. Phonetic names change the alphabetizing in contacts. My sister's last name is Jaca. When I put in Haka as a phonetic pronunciation, it moves her contact down into the H area. How stupid is that?

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Holy cow - I never noticed that before, but you're quite right. How stupid indeed!