Since the launch of the iPhone 4S, we have seen numerous Siri clones come and go. While Siri does have its flaws, the feature is unique, smart, user-friendly and at times, hilarious. Most alternatives promise these same features, unfortunately they never seem to deliver. Enter Evi, a Siri alternative that promises to bring users even more functionality than Apple’s digital personal assistant. The program is created by True Knowledge and uses the company’s Answer Engine to provide users with what it claims to be a limitless amount of information. The app is available for free in the Android Market and for $0.99 in the App Store, and that price covers the cost of using Nuance voice recognition (the same voice recognition technology as Siri), which the Android version does not feature require. Read on for more.
The company said the app contains “almost a billion facts” along with the ability to infer trillions if necessary. Evi also uses various sources, such as Yelp, third-party websites, traditional web searches and APIs to answer a wide range of questions.
The app is capable of delivering local data to users within the United Kingdom, which is something Siri cannot do. It also provides quicker information to users. For example, when asking “How do I make apple pie?” Siri is unable to provide a direct answer and will ask whether you want to search the web. Evi on the other hand is able to provide a list of recipes with web links. If you ask “Who was President when Queen Elizabeth II was born?” Evi determines who Queen Elizabeth II is, when she was born and then compares this against which U.S. presidents were in office over that time, delivering the results of both serving U.S. presidents during those years. Siri cannot do this.
In its current form, Evi is not capable of integrating with the iPhone’s Calendar and Reminders like Siri can, although support could be added in the future. Unfortunately, after downloading both the Android and iOS versions of this potentially great app, we were unable to connect to Evi’s servers. Although we couldn’t test the app, Evi certainly sounds like a worthy competitor to Siri — on paper, at least.
