back to article Siri gets Android rival as Cluzee goes live

Apple’s Siri now has an Android rival in the form of Cluzee, a voice-controlled personal assistant, which – who? – is now available as a free download. Cluzee, built by startup Tronton, comes as a 9.42MB download and can run on Android 2.1 and above. In potential scope it’s slightly more ambitious than Siri, since it aims to …

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  1. Matthew Anderson

    Excellent

    An application I will never use. :-)

    Other than phone calls, I do not speak to my phone. I've tried it and it feels unnatural.

    "text Friend, Want to meet up in an hour?"

    "error"

    "Where can I buy a Pizza?"

    "error"

    _-_

    0 0

    <

    "Search: cheap jeans for sale"

    "error"

    ARGHHHHH - not only do i feel like a prick, but I have to repeat myself in public and feel more like a prick.

    Keypads r mch nicr

    1. jubtastic1
      Trollface

      Thanks Matthew

      I was thinking of trying it for myself, but if you say the whole concept is pants that's good enough for me.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Doesn't stop Apple banging on about it tho.

        I agree with you, it's a crap waste of time/money, but ipeople will love it.

    2. Richard 81

      "Keypads r mch nicr"

      They don't help your typing though.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Richard 81

        Irony Fail

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The important question

    Will this one agree to open those pod bay doors? Or is it as unhelpful as the rest?

  3. thesykes
    FAIL

    how much did the devs pay you?

    This is utter junk. 19mb download for something that doesn't work and does nothing that is shown in the video.

    1. CaNsA
      Mushroom

      Actually its a 9mb download. It is 19mb when unpacked.....

      Anyways, its a pants app. Force closes on my SGS2 whenever i try to do anything with it.

  4. Matt Banks

    point proven

    I thought I'd never use Siri. It just seemed stupid. Much of that opinion is based on the fact that voice recognition just hasn't worked for me in the past.

    At all.

    However, for the most part, it really works. So, it's nice when you're driving along to just be able to ask your phone to do something. And it does it. Correctly.

    With that said, I personally don't use Siri a whole lot. The person that uses it in our household is my wife. I can't really say how many times in the past month that my wife has told me or did something completely out of character for her (for example, I made arrangements to have her car in for service and she changed the appointment time and day) and when I asked how she knew to do it (e.g., how did she even know the phone number) she just replies "I asked my phone."

    She's had an HTC TP2 for 2+ years (and a Moto Q prior to that) and she had NOT ONCE used either of them to look up information like that - despite my constant prodding to do so. (I mention the other phones partially to point out that I'm not purely an Apple bigot.) Now she tells me perhaps once every other day how much she loves her iPhone.

    This is because "it just works" for her. If she were getting errors all the time or results similar to the SeeMe vs. Siri video that's floating around these days, she'd certainly never use it.

    I'm sure Android will have something that's "good enough" one of these days, but from what I've seen, there still isn't anything yet that truly gives Siri a run for its money.

    1. Nick_l1969

      NOT an encouraging anecdote

      This does not speak well for technology and the human race. Basically what you have said (with no offense meant tward you wife) is that unless something is idiot-proof and dead easy, she cant be bothered to use it, even if it puts her out not too. As a race, we are closer to the time of Wall-e than we think. Make your reservation for the floating chairs now.

  5. Francis Boyle Silver badge

    And people think

    Facebook is creepy.

  6. Steve Evans

    I tried Siri the other day...

    I said (in a clear British accent) "What time is it?"

    It replied

    "I don't know what the time is at 32 minus 45 moody street"

    1) It doesn't matter what the time is in Moody Street, just knowing I'm in the UK would be good enough, and you can work that out from the cells with no need to reference wifi or GPS info.

    2) We say "32 to 45" not "32 minus 45" for an address which spans multiple numbers

    3) I wasn't anywhere near s*dding moody street!

    So overall I wasn't particularly impressed.

    Although I did manage to successful sneak a "wake me at 4am" into the phone, which belonged to a friend.... Haven't spoken to him since, so I might be in trouble, then again, this is an iphone alarm, so it might not have gone off yet!

    1. Andrew Hodgkinson
      Stop

      Counter-anecdote

      Me: "What time is it?"

      Siri prints "What time is it" and spins for about a second.

      Siri: "The time is 12:59."

      An analogue clock which also shows my location and the time numerically is printed underneath.

      On the other hand, "Where am I?" really ought to just dump the current location but instead it gives the tiresome response about only supporting US locations presently.

      1. Steve Evans

        Well I'm only telling you what it it did to me. I might have said "What is the time?" instead of "What time is it?".

        It certainly understood what I had said as it showed the correct transcription on the screen and then started moaning about the address.

    2. Graham Marsden
      Happy

      "What time is it?"

      "I've got it writted down on a piece of paper!"

  7. Graham Marsden
    Stop

    Cui bono?

    "We just need the right information at the right time, which Cluzee intelligently provides"

    So their application "intelligently" decides what the "right" information is.

    But is that what you *need* to know or what their sponsors and advertising partners decide would be most beneficial to them for you to know...?

  8. DB2k
    WTF?

    Siri was a standalone app wasnt it before apple owned it.. and this company didn't look into that someone else was already doing what they want to do? I find that a bit hard to believe..

  9. Tom 7

    Any Siri induced injuries yet?

    cos I've come close to lumping a couple of idiots shouting repeatedly at their hands.

    I am currently collecting lots of voice samples from users so I can use my phone and a sound pipe poked into their phone pocket to 'Send all my details to nn.nn.nn.nn, pay all my cash to xx.xxx.xx.xx and then delete all my information"

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apple first?

    So I was just imaging MS Voice Command on my XDA back in 2000?

    I'm sure there were others before that even.

    1. TeeCee Gold badge
      Mushroom

      MS Voice Command doesn't count. That does it all on the phone itself and recognises regional / foreign accents well, rather than requiring a decent data connection, a load of servers behind the scenes and also being crap unless spoken to in specific dialects.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    use built in

    Use built in voice control for basic things. Look like an idiot talking to your phone. It's bad enough having to listen to someone's voice call on the bus or train...now we have to listen to them controlling their phone? no thanks.

  12. Mystic Megabyte

    There is a local character called Bob the Builder who wanders in and out of the pub making calls to his imaginary construction company. This software is exactly what he needs.

  13. Studley

    Health records?

    "Will I need an umbrella today?"

    "Unlikely Dave - you only have six hours to live"

  14. Daniel Bower
    FAIL

    Is this for real?..

    An app, run on a Google owned operating system that links (and I'm hoping only if I want it to?!) to my medical records.

    I think this would be one of the features of this particular app that I'd be avoiding...

  15. Electric Panda
    FAIL

    Siri has the edge

    Because it actually opens, runs and is vaguely interesting even if it is just a bit of a gimmick.

    Cluzee just crashes on startup and I can't even test it. LG Optimus One running stock Froyo.

  16. Mike Judge
    Stop

    problem is

    Siri is a gimmmick, nobody talks to their phones like they are a real person.

    we still think people using Bluetooth headsets in public are total wankers... I have yet to see an iphone owner talking to siri I public, if I ever do, I will be sure to point and laugh. However iphone users I would imagine are used to people laughing them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      Your imagination

      is imagining it wrong

    2. uhuznaa

      "I have yet to see an iphone owner talking to siri"

      And how would you know? After all he won't be looking any different from someone actually talking to someone else on the other end of the line.

      Anyway, when the telephone was new, people thought it to be very strange to talk to someone who wasn't actually there. When the mobile phone was new, people found it very strange to talk to others over the phone in public. Now some people think it is strange talking to your phone (instead of someone else over the phone) and I'm fairly sure that this won't feel strange for very long.

    3. Danny 14

      actually no

      some people using headsets are working. I used to get minimal time to get between jobs needing to call each job in. I could sit down and spend 10 mins on a bench doing this (wasting 100 mins each day) or a could do it whilst walking/cycling or bussing to the next job. Which is what I did. Wanker or not at least I was on time and spent more time with the kids.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      iPeople do! Tragic isn't it.

      So is the "wife" who loves her phone everyday!

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Not really

    Only use I can really see for it is making calls hands free when driving.

    I have a RAZR V3 that does that perfectly as standard.

    Press button say 'office' it repeats 'office' and phone rings. Been doing it for years.

    The one with the RAZR in the pocket.

  18. g e
    Trollface

    Drastic Cosmetic Surgery

    Is the only thing that removes the smug look from iThing users' faces.

    Oh and a crap battery life

  19. graham_
    FAIL

    you downloaded it?

    Couldn't see any link on the site to download or link to the market, bit of a silly way to push your app.

  20. HP Cynic

    Terrible name, people will be very tempted pronounce this "Klutzy".

    Siri was bad enough.

  21. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Vlingo

    Is the Nokia equivalent...

    http://store.ovi.com/content/16544

    No idea if it works or not, never felt the need to talk to my phone so I've not downloaded it.

  22. stolen name

    I can get it to start.. when ever I speak to it is when it crashes. Maybe it just doesn't like my voice..

  23. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Orange Wildfire

    Ah, those were the days...

    1. samwisethecat

      Orange Wildfire

      Did you ever find the Easter egg "Do me a favour"?

      The sarcastic responses to the "I'm depressed" command were brilliant - sounded just like an ex of mine

    2. TeeCee Gold badge

      Trouble was that Wildfire was to voice recognition what rigger boots are to ballet.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Sounds like most voice recognition then.

        I only had a play with someone else's Wildfire and remember being impressed, but not impressed enough to pay for it.

        I did use Everyphone quite a lot though (free call diversion).

        Oh how the mighty have fallen.

  24. JayGreeny
    Coat

    Jeannie/Voice Actions has been available for over a year on the Market, and effectively does what Siri does. Stability can be an issue sometimes, but it works alright.

    Mine's the one with the talking pocket.

  25. Mister Major
    Terminator

    "Technology created the problem, but we're using smarter technology to solve it."

    A dangerous precedent

  26. Nanners
    Big Brother

    Sounds like

    Spyware to me.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's go to be good. Apple "invented" it.

    <Smirk> ROFPMSL

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Holmes

      Wrong

      Apple never claimed they invented it. Check your facts before you Troll. They bought a private company that developed the software

  28. tommydokc
    Big Brother

    a google voice everywhere.

    my current android 2.2 with google voice search can do , IMO, pretty much the same thing. just not as polished, granted, as you have to use more defining phrasing but it will work to get the same/similar results. some users here have the new iphone and i've got to admit siri works pretty darn well with casual phrasing of what you're wanting.

  29. studentrights

    Total Failure

    http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/11/29/siri_clones_demonstrate_vast_technical_lead_apple_enjoys_with_iphone_4s_software.html

  30. ScaredyCat
    FAIL

    Open What?

    What part of this is open source? Nothing on their site, nothing in google... are you sure?

    Also, oddly, people seem to magically forget about Vlingo which has been around for a while now and covers multiple platforms.

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