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Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
2,118
125
Having read that Evi was grrrreat by many and rubbish by many I downloaded anyway out of curiosity.

For general knowledge ... ok. Anything useful, it's not much use.
Give me the number for.....? Nope and irrelevant websites ensue.
What's 20% of 500....? Nope and it says say it in words. I was! Is there any other way?
Is the .... game on? Nope

Question being, why do many say in some ways it's better than Siri?
In what way? I found it no use at all. No texts, no emails, no tel numbers, no maths? Please explain.

Is Voice Actions any better for anything?
 
I agree that Evi leaves a lot to be desired at the moment, but I think that it shows great potential and I'm prepared to give it time to develop and improve. It could prove a strong competitor to Siri, assuming Apple don't delete it from the App Store.
 
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If you want Siri to do things for you that you can already do, you might as well jailbreak your phone. Cydia has got Siri opening up YouTube, Safari, adjusting the brightness, turning off 3G and chatting.

People say Evi is better than Siri because it brings up webpages closely related to what you asked instead of directing you to Google.

It's not really practical to send question into Google. So when Siri says, "Do you want me to search for, 'What medication do I use for pink eye' ?"

I always say no. Then, I go to Google and type, pink eye medications or medications for pink eye.

I don't know what voice actions are.
 
Have never used Siri, was just curious what use Evi was as I've found it completely useless for anything I've asked it.

4 divided by 2 is simple right?

Phone number for a famous store?

Like I say if it text people or emailed people I'd get it, but it doesn't do anything useful. I was just curious as to what people use it for and find useful about it, Anyone have opinions on Voice Actions who has used Evi?
 
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For the record here are their job descriptions.

Siri: Helps you get things done just by asking.

Evi: Answers your questions.

All it would take is one update to Siri to make Evi irrelevant.
 
Out of interest, why are Apple so bothered about Evi and want to remove it, but not Voice Actions which I thought would be nearer to Siri because that DOES offer reminders, text and email control?
 
As nobody has any feedback for me about Voice Actions, I decided to download it today. I wish someone would have answered and told me what I was letting myself in for.

I may as well have taken the money and thrown it down the toilet. It takes forever to load, then freezes on the 'tap to ask me a question' screen, then the green circles that surround the mic app freeze and nothing happens.

I've read so many people saying that Evi takes a long time, Trust me, this takes much longer. Is this normal for that app, I've watched it on YouTube from various people and it seems to work seamlessly.

Have they just updated it to make it unuseable now? It's a disgrace, really... I've deleted it and installed again, and it's still appaling. They shouldn't have charged me once, but if deleting and re installing charges me again, I won't be happy!
 
Out of interest, why are Apple so bothered about Evi and want to remove it, but not Voice Actions which I thought would be nearer to Siri because that DOES offer reminders, text and email control?

I was almost there. Evi was popular. It went from number 1, fell of of the top 25, then clawed it's way back up to number 2. It's similar to Siri because it talks back. I guess they didn't want it gaining any foothold. It did steal some spotlight.

Quote from Evi.com

"People were annoyed that they were unable to use Evi. They could check out her classy looks, marvel at her voice recognition but for many, getting an answer was rather tricky due to the high demand. We were frustrated as we could see users giving poor reviews for an app that we knew to be excellent but were not able to prove to those reviewers."

Because Apple has STILL not been pushing the updates to it, people eventually will stop using it.
 
I was almost there. Evi was popular. It went from number 1, fell of of the top 25, then clawed it's way back up to number 2. It's similar to Siri because it talks back. I guess they didn't want it gaining any foothold. It did steal some spotlight.

Quote from Evi.com

"People were annoyed that they were unable to use Evi. They could check out her classy looks, marvel at her voice recognition but for many, getting an answer was rather tricky due to the high demand. We were frustrated as we could see users giving poor reviews for an app that we knew to be excellent but were not able to prove to those reviewers."

Because Apple has STILL not been pushing the updates to it, people eventually will stop using it.

I don't think Evi is even a quarter as bad as 'Voice Actions' which also talks back but is very buggy, and that is top of 'Business' in iPhone Apps, whereas Evi is top of 'Lifestyle'. Have you ever used the VA one?
 
Have I ever used Voice Actions?

No, it didn't appeal to me. What I'm interested in is an actual artificial intelligence. Something that knows me, knows who I am. Siri is th closest to that. But she doesn't answer all my question, so sometimes I use Evi.

But I like the idea of AI. Input speech, get a response, I think it should be used it games and language learning technologies.
 
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