Siri has a New Competitor – Evi

24 Jan 2012 | News | Miss Hello Kitty on Google+

Apple’s Siri is definitely not alone in trying to be our digital helper that knows almost everything and can easily help us in any way we ask. Actually how effective Siri is in its goal will depend on the way you make use of it and also whether your accent fits.

Now Siri has a new competitor, called Evi. Created by True Knowledge and powered by the very same Nuance-based backend as Apple’s digital helper, Evi is offered for all iPhones in the App Store. Moreover, you can also find a beta application designed for Android devices.

While Evi doesn’t have the integrated benefit that Siri wields, she is probably the first clone that is just as clever, if not cleverer, than Siri.

In fact Evi is offered for both iOS and Android, with the latter being free and the former towing a $0.99 selling price. The difference definitely seems to be down to the need to pay Nuance for the voice recognition engine – an engine that isn’t utilized in the Android version. At less than $1 we will not complain too much.

If you think that Evi is a poor imitation of Siri then you are in for a surprise. From our first testing throughout the internet, Evi is proving to be something of a sleeper hit, with UK-based users particularly satisfied. The key reason for that is localization because of Siri’s lack of ability to use maps and the like away from USA.

“Unlike a search engine, which simply looks for matching words and shows you a list of websites, Evi understands what you want to know and gives back exactly what you’re after.

Need to know where the nearest bank is? Not a problem. Going out for dinner but can’t decide where? She can help with that too. The more you ask, the more she will learn, and thus she is improving all the time.”

Just like Siri, Evi promises to learn from its mistakes as well as your requests to give much better results. The application integrates with a lot like Yelp to give localized results too. Tell us what you think of Siri’s competitor Evi in the comments!