Apple 'Working With' True Knowledge to Address Concerns Over Evi's Similarities to Siri

[Small White Car]

My advice: Dump Apple's iOS gadgets and buy an Android product instead. Android is a free market and the platform is not owned by a bully.

Suggesting Google as you benevolent overlord is pretty delusional these days too.

I never thought I'd say it, but I honestly think Microsoft is the better bet in this particular arena. I'm a bit surprised to see someone with your attitude still backing Google.

 

[bsolar]

Well I would be pissed but there are a lot of people that buy iPhone that don't know how to use them and can get confused by many things that tech savy people would consider elementary. Take samsungs commercial for instance.

If they don't know, they would likey go with the already installed Siri than with a third party app they have to actively look for and install themselves.

The rule mentioned is enforced selectively by Apple with the goal of avoiding competing products. Obviously they cannot simply ban very popular applications (e.g. the Kindle App) and they don't care about all competing apps (calculator & company), but Siri is pretty new and is still a work in progress. They probably want to protect it because they are still investing in its development and they deem the user base growt margin to be very significant. If users embrace a competing product they would have a problem.

Don't get me wrong, it's their app store and they can set whatever rule they want, but for sure they're not doing this in the best interest of the customer.

 

[michaelflynn]

My advice: Dump Apple's iOS gadgets and buy an Android product instead. Android is a free market and the platform is not owned by a bully. And the latest Android products are better than Apple's stuff anyway.

I actually just dumped my Samsung Android phone for the iPhone 4S. Spent almost two awful years of my life struggling with that piece of garbage.

 

[GREEN4U]

Evi is a better name because Siri is already a ticker symbol for Sirius Satellite Radio. Another Tim Cook Apple fail.

----------

I actually just dumped my Samsung Android phone for the iPhone 4S. Spent almost two awful years of my life struggling with that piece of garbage.

Everybody knows 4S stands for "for suckers." I'll gladly take the new iPhone 5 please.

 

[michaelflynn]

Everybody knows 4S stands for "for suckers." I'll gladly take the new iPhone 5 please.

Got it for $100 in almost brand new condition. I was trying to hold out for the 5 but couldn't pass up the deal

 

[wilsonlaidlaw]

Evi=useless

Just purchased EVI and installed. Asked a really difficult question - "who is the british prime minister?" The answer from EVI - sorry do not know who is the british prime minister. One word description of EVI - useless and therefore a waste of money.

 

[ArchaicRevival]

knows best. They know what they're doing!

 

[markcres]

"1984" has arrived.....courtesy of the Apple "Iron Fist"

 

[hstewart]

Personally I don't care if Apple creates new feature - what i dislike is blocking off features on previous phone.

I am still planning to get next iPhone next fall - unless a killer Medfield based Windows 8 phone comes out before then, but this stuff is starting to making me dislike Apple. Combine that with ARM Based Mac Book Air ( I believe never ) - Apple will loose me to Microsoft

I will NEVER used Android.

 

[DavidLeblond]

Suggesting Google as you benevolent overlord is pretty delusional these days too.

I never thought I'd say it, but I honestly think Microsoft is the better bet in this particular arena. I'm a bit surprised to see someone with your attitude still backing Google.

Agreed. If I ever had to switch phone OSes, I'd go for Windows Phone 7 over Android any day. Both Windows Phone 7 and iOS were built for touch screens. With Android it's a bolt-on, which is why no matter how many cores they stick in the phones the OS still feels like a herky-jerk mess: because it wasn't designed to handle what they're throwing at it.

 

[Fandongo]

Similar product means competition.
Evi is competition.
Comepetition is confusing.
Confusion is evil.
Evi is Evil.

 

[KingJosh]

Big thing here would be. What came first? Siri or Evi. If Siri came first the developer(s) should have known something like this was probably going to happen and took the risk anyway. If Evi came first, screw Apple they should either buy it or live with it. Can't take others ideas and expect fame and fortune.

 

[Flitzy]

My advice: Dump Apple's iOS gadgets and buy an Android product instead. Android is a free market and the platform is not owned by a bully. And the latest Android products are better than Apple's stuff anyway.

Android? A terrible, malware ridden OS is your solution?

And will people stop with the whole "Google is so wonderful" stuff. Your supposed "open company" is nothing more then a front to funnel your information to their ad-partners.

As for the topic, I have no problem with this. It's clear that Evi is a duplicate app. I think working with the developers to adjust the design is quite generous of Apple, honestly.

 

[feszty]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

This is just bad. A voice based assistant inherently can't be that different from one another. You talk to it and it talks back. What can be done to reduce this similarity? No much. Maybe Apple will force them to use a funny accent, or something like that.

 

[emvath]

Similar product means competition.
Evi is competition.
Comepetition is confusing.
Confusion is evil.
Evi is Evil.

But that can't be true because your signature says that there is no evil. So which is it?

 

[copykris]

Well Apple-BUY them out and integrate it into Siri-if it is better and offers more functionality why not-you have the cash!

so sick of the OMG APPLE SHOULD TOTALLY BUY THEM/THE WORLD/OUR SOLAR SYSTEM-crowd

terrible

 

[rstansby]

Does Apple now offer an advertising option where they threaten to pull your app to boost sales? I wonder what that costs.

 

[SeattleMoose]

Competition Is Good

"Confusing to consumers" .... oh please

PLEASE let Evi compete with Siri. If not, Apple won't be pressed to improve Siri and we consumers will have no alternative.

Apple, you once were the "little guy" portrayed in your classic 1984 TV Ad.

Lately, you have been looking more like the guy on the screen and not the girl with the hammer...

I humbly ask you to reconsider this ruling.

 

[Renzatic]

But that can't be true because your signature says that there is no evil. So which is it?

Damn, you beat me to it.

EVI IS POWAH!

 

[warfed]

I love it how Apple states in their terms that they can copy your software if you submit it to the app store but they get all pissy if someone copies theirs... What happens if they copy my software (and they can since it's in the license agreement when I purchased the iOS developer program) and say that now my software is too similar to theirs? Not likely to happen, but would be quite funny

 

[charlituna]

It's funny how a rumor that says they will can the app that makes you so tempted to buy it!

Indeed. It would be a good reason to start such a rumor

 

[Mad-B-One]

HUH???

So are they going to remove all the other calculator, weather, texting, note-taking, and mail apps from the AppStore because they're "confusingly similar" to the native ones?

Yea! Shame on you Skype! You just look like the iPhone native Call App when I make my $0.0019/min to another continent! That fools me into believing I get overcharged by 100.000% (considering $2/min regular)! My whole heart attack for nothing! How could you...

 

[hchung]

Big thing here would be. What came first? Siri or Evi. If Siri came first the developer(s) should have known something like this was probably going to happen and took the risk anyway. If Evi came first, screw Apple they should either buy it or live with it. Can't take others ideas and expect fame and fortune.

The short answer: Siri came first.

The long answer:
Both Siri Inc. (the company that Apple bought) and True Knowledge (the company who wrote Evi) were established in 2007. Both companies started out working on technology that would interpret questions posed by users and then attempt to provide answers. Siri's engine was involved in several academic AI projects spanning 2003 and 2008, but I can't seem to find an actual product; only research. True knowledge had an open beta in 2007 and a online search engine product in 2008. Voice recognition wasn't really part of either until Siri (the iPhone app) launched in Early 2009. Evi launched in early 2012.
While Evi as an app is a copy of Siri (as an app), the history of the engines that back both of them were both in development far back enough that they were originally very different systems that shouldn't be considered copies.

 

[Mr. Gates]

Does anyone remember when Apple pulled the App "Camera Plus" because it allowed people to use the volume button as the shutter ?

They pulled it and said " It would confuse consumers"

Then they put it in iOS 5

This isn't quite the same but it is pretty funny.

How confused would you have to be to search for an App, read the description, download it, and think you have SIRI ?

That's a lame excuse for Apple being anti- competitive.

I don't see them pulling all the Calculator Apps .....Or Notes Apps ...

 

[WardC]

In section 128, article 5, subsection 6, sector 3, clause K-105, it sayeth...

"No company shall do wrong to Apple, or present mockery thereof"

I think that is enough.

Shannanigans!