It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Iris is an anagram for Siri, the much talked about personal assistant that comes with the iPhone 4S. We’ve all heard and read about the things that Siri says, and everyone seems to be jumping into the bandwagon. Even those who are not really iPhone fans. Or maybe especially those who are not – except they jump into the anti-Siri bandwagon.
And as was to be expected, Android developers have not taken the release of Siri without wanting to show what they can do as well. Not long after the hullaballoo that surrounded the announcement of the iPhone 4S, together with Siri, an app was released in the Android Market.
Developer Dexetera went all in to make their app as fast as they could – in a mere 8 hours! And with the tongue-in-cheek name, Iris, one can expect to have a lot of fun with the app. I do not have an Android phone – nor do I have an iPhone 4S – so I cannot compare the two apps, but Chris Davies at Slashgear ((Full article)) says that Iris does have a long way to go to get to Siri’s level. He gave some examples of the mistakes that Iris made during his tests, and based on them, it does seem that Siri trumps Iris for now. And just to be fair, we have to acknowledge that Siri does give wrong answers as well, but she still responds more quickly than Iris. Then again, what can we expect, really? On the one hand, there is Siri on a costly phone that has been in the works for months at the very least. On the other hand, we have Iris which was created in 8 hours and is available for free!
Since it will not cost you anything, why not get Iris from the Android Market anyway? I am pretty sure, anyway, that the developers will release an improved version of the app in the near future.