Android Alternatives to Apple’s Siri Personal Assistant

When it was announced in October, one of the headline features of Apple's iPhone 4S was Siri, an "intelligent assistant" which answers spoken questions and takes orders given in natural English. It was less like Google's Voice Actions for Android, an app which understands a limited set of specific commands, and more like the computers on Star Trek.

Not exactly like them. Its limited vocabulary includes facetious, canned responses to questions like "What is the meaning of life?" which Internet comedians have exploited. Meanwhile, noted feminist writer Amanda Marcotte has observed "Siri is an electronic version of a [female] secretary," and that its answers to questions about women's health issues are very unhelpful ... especially compared to its answers for men who want to solicit sex workers.

Despite these issues -- and outages that have affected Siri's network service on and off since November -- Siri remains one of the iPhone 4S' "killer features," and is heavily promoted on Apple's official website for the iPhone. Google is even said to be trying to make its own alternative to Siri, code-named Majel (after the actress who voiced the "Star Trek" computers), according to Taylor Wimberley of Android and Me. Read more...