Crab was officially launched in iPhone 4S in October 2011, the manufacturers of Android terminals tried to reproduce its functionality but failed, but those from Amazon claim that a software called Ivona is the best replacement for iOS assistant. Ivona is already implemented to a certain extent in the Amazon Kindle Fire tablets, she only reads the texts on the screen, but Amazon will try to transform Ivona into its own Siri, with an extended functionality.
Amazon.com Inc said on Thursday that it acquired speech-recognition company Ivona Software, a sign the world's largest Internet retailer may be looking to develop more services similar to Apple Inc's Siri voice-based search product. Amazon did not say how much it paid for Ivona and an Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment on a purchase price. Ivona's technology already supports several features on Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet computers, such as "Text-to-Speech," said Dave Limp, who oversees the Kindle business. We look forward to building great products to deliver world-class voice solutions to customers around the world," Limp said in a statement.
Siri is not a great system, it has many limitations and does not support many languages, but Amazon could solve these problems and bring to the market a great alternative for the assistant. Of course, Siri is useful on a smartphone because a small screen is enhanced by the possibility of using voice commands, but in the absence of an Amazon smartphone, I don't really think that users will give up the iPad for the Kindle Fire, just based on the Ivona system.
