Those from TechCrunch have published an article today in which they present a theory according to which Apple would implement a new system for recognizing voice commands in iOS 5. Those from TechCrunch say that Apple could be in discussions to acquire the company Nuance whose software for recognizing commands voice is already used in applications such as Dragon Dictation. More importantly, Siri, the company acquired last year by Apple, has also integrated part of Nuance's system into its own software, so an acquisition of the two would be more than logical.
Apple has been negotiating a deal with Nuance in recent months, we've heard from multiple sources. What does that mean? Well, it could mean an acquisition, but that is looking fairly unlikely at this point, we hear. More likely, it means a partnership that will be vital to both companies and could shape the future of iOS.
The other option is for Apple to build the technology themselves. And some recent job postings suggest they may be thinking about that. But to get to where Nuance is today it would take a long, long time. Perhaps more importantly, it is well known in the industry that Nuance holds key patents for their technology and is very aggressive in protecting them. Even Apple would have a hard time dancing around this if they did go it alone.
Although Apple is in advanced negotiations with representatives of Nuance, the problem is that the president of the company proves to be very difficult to convince to accept the terms imposed by Apple. A new system for recognizing voice commands would be more than useful for iOS, especially since there is something similar and very well developed for Android. The problem for us is that such a system would not work so well for the Romanian language, so it would be semi-useless. For now, it remains to be seen if Apple will succeed in convincing those from Nuance and only at WWDC will we see what they have prepared for us.
