[Update] Iris: Is it Androids response to Siri?

Well, sort of.

If you’re at all like me, you couldn’t help but feel slightly outdone when Apple released their shiny new iPhone4s. No, not because of its operating system or specs, but for a little app that comes bundled with it called Siri.  For those who are for some reason unaware of what exactly Siri is and does, she is a voice recognition personal assistant. You speak to her, she responds. Simple and effective.

Enter Iris- “Yeah, it’s Siri backwards” as the devs over at Dexetra like to put it. Currently Iris is in her Alpha stage, so bugs are expected. But don’t let that stop you! She’s still incredibly fun to play with and the potential is painfully obvious. After all, this Alpha stage was released in under 24 hours of development.

Keep in mind that Iris uses both “Voice Search” and “TTS library”, both come pre-installed on most phones, but if you flashed a rom that doesn’t, they can easily be found on the Android Market.

Iris is incredibly easy to use: simply click the microphone button on the bottom of your screen and ask away! Once you click on the microphone button you’re free to ask Iris about almost anything whether it’s something silly such as “how much wood would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood” or something simple such as “what’s the weather like in NY”.

New to this official Alpha release is the ability to converse with Iris instead of all inquiries being stand alone. For example: I asked Iris if she was seeing anyone. Her response?, a cold no. But this didn’t deter me, I kept going, being the suave guy that I am, and asked her to go out with me, to which I was met with another cold response. In the end she calls me a machine- so much for suave.

Overall Iris is a solid app that’s well on its way to competing with Siri. One huge gap which has to be overcome is the ability to interact with other apps on your phone. For example, at the moment you cannot ask Iris to create and send an e-mail for you, or schedule a task in your calendar. Hopefully these features will be added as we move passed the Alpha stage.

I’m very pleased with Iris. Definitely a lot of potential here, I’ll be keeping my eye on her and her future updates. Feel free to click or scan the QR code below to give her a whirl for yourself.

Application: Iris. (Alpha)
Developer: Dexetra
Cost: FREE

Update – A new update has just been pushed by the good folks at Dexetra. They adressed a complaint some users had and she no longer repeats what you asked her. I personally liked that she repeated what you asked- it was useful in situations where you can’t stop what you’re doing to make sure she heard correctly. If that was one of your issues, then you will be happy know it is gone now.