iPhone 4S' Siri to Have Rival in Amazon's Yap
The iPhone 4S' Siri will soon have a rival as Amazon secretly bought Yap - a voice to text and speech Recognition Company based in Charlotte, NC.
Amazon kept its mouth shut as to the plans on where to set up its Yap application. But with Siri revolutionizing the mobile technology, Amazon seems to be planning a total hands-free mobile experience.
Reports say that Amazon's purchase of Yap was made in Sept. even before Apple launched Siri as an inclusion to the iPhone 4S. But announcement hasn't made yet, to avoid speculation that Amazon is trying to compete with Apple.
Yap previously had a mobile application on Beta, which can transcribe voicemails and were available for Android and iOS phones under AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, service was terminated though since Oct. 20, 2011. However, reasons for the discontinued of service were not disclosed.
In a report from PCMAG.COM, the merger between Yap and Dion Acquisition was spotted by Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic, when the SEC filing made between the two companies showed that Dion Acquisition's address was the same as the Amazon's Seattle campus.
Aplle's Siri is a personal assistant application that offers conversational interaction with much other application on iPhone 4s, including messaging, email, music, contacts, notes and maps. Apple removed the existing Siri app from the App Store when the announcement came out that it will be included in iPhone 4S. But users managed to get Siri back to jailbroken handsets. Sources also said that some developers were able to use Siri with their iPod Touch, iPad and iPhone 4.
Siri earlier announced that their software would also be available for Balckberry and Android phones, development efforts were cancelled when it was purchased by Apple in April 2010.
It is not yet clear as to where Amazon would include the Yap application, but the latest Kindle that will be released Nov. will definitely not have it yet. But with Kindle, the inclusion of the voice functionality is something to look forward to. Siri, on the other hand, has not been included in the iPad series, but is expected to be an inclusion in the iPad 3.