# Majel and Alfred > Siri?



## ThatAndroidShow (Oct 10, 2011)

Rumor has it that Google is in the works for their own personal assistant (codenamed Majel) to compete against Apple's Siri. This is hot off the heels of Google purchasing CleverSense and its personal assistant, Alfred, so my question is, will Alfred and Majel complement each other to takedown Siri, or will one take a backseat to the other? Personally, I believe the two together can be the Siri app for Android that we've all been looking for.


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## Melon Bread (Nov 29, 2011)

Still to this day I do not quite see the need for Siri


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## LDubs (Nov 8, 2011)

Wrong!! The whole point is to continue to trump iPhone peeps.

Sent from my Ic3d Kin3txed Bionic with Hon3y


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## TheRidge (Nov 25, 2011)

LDubs said:


> Wrong!! The whole point is to continue to trump iPhone peeps.
> 
> Sent from my Ic3d Kin3txed Bionic with Hon3y


YEAH I totally agree! Anything to beat down those snotty iPhoney's, I'm all for!








Ridge

Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk


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## jrkoffjonsn (Dec 30, 2011)

I love when someone has an iPhone and they brag about Siri to me. I usually trump their bragging moment by telling them I can play n64 and PsX on my phone and thru my TV...with a sixaxis controller. That usually leaves them standing their quiet and wishing they had a Android phone









Oh and I forgot, our phones have had Voice Commands since its inception.


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## LDubs (Nov 8, 2011)

See now that would sit me down too, I have no idea what a sixaxis controller is...

Sent from my Kin3txed Bionic with Hon3y


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## jameslfc5 (Jan 5, 2012)

LDubs said:


> See now that would sit me down too, I have no idea what a sixaxis controller is...
> 
> Sent from my Kin3txed Bionic with Hon3y


it's a playstation 3 controller









Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk


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## keeverw (Dec 12, 2011)

Melon Bread said:


> Still to this day I do not quite see the need for Siri


Here is my personal opinion, and why I'm fairly impressed by Siri even though I've never had an iPhone, nor do I ever plan on having an iPhone.
I really like voice recognition in general, because no matter how great of a predictive keyboard you have (I use SwiftKey-X which is awesome) it is not as quick to type as it is to just speak what you're looking for. If I want to know how many feet are in a mile, I can press the voice search button, and say "how many feet are in a mile" and seconds later, I have the number 5,280 on my screen. Not a browser window with 15 trillion results. Just the answer, and that alone.

Programs like Siri not only search for what you're looking for, but they sift through a lot of the extraneous search results so you don't have to, and find the most relevant answer.

Now Android has had that capability with it's Voice Search app long before anyone ever heard of Siri.
But Siri has an edge, and that is because you don't have to memorize specific commands with Siri. You can just talk normally, and generally speaking it will get the idea of what you are asking. This eliminates you from the daunting task of trying to memorize a huge list of commands. And the more capable our phones and these voice recognition programs become, the longer that list of commands will be, and the more difficult to remember them all. If you could just tell the phone in your own words what you want it to do, that would eliminate having to memorize all the commands, which to me would be very nice. It makes interacting with your phone much simpler and at the same time, it will return more correct results for you.

I use Vlingo on my HTC-Thunderbolt and it works very well, but even that can't compare with Siri.

From what I've read, Majel will do everything Siri does (probably minus the witty retorts, which are pretty childish anyway) and way more.
It will be able to access Google apps installed on your phone too, to help it come up with answers. If you ask it "how do you say hello in french" it can access google translate, and not only spell "bonjour" for you but even pronounce it correctly. If you want to know what a good Thai restraunt in your vicinity is, it can access Alfred's database, and tell you which ones are around you and how they are rated by customers. And then when you pick one, it can open up the navigator and tell you how to get there, or open up the dialer and call them so you can make reservations. Or it can check groupon to see if there are any deals available. It could organize all of this information for you in seconds. The voice part of it, really just saves the hassle of typing. And really Google's voice search already does a stellar job of converting your speech to text. But what Majel will do is take that text and determine what it is you are asking for, no matter how you say it.
You could say "send a text to my wife saying I have to work late, don't wait on me for dinner" and it will do just that. You could also say "I would like for you to text Jennifer that I have to work late, don't wait on me for dinner." Or you could say "please let my wife know I have to work late, don't wait on me for dinner."

And any of those ways of saying it will get the job done. Just like you are talking to a human personal assistant, you don't have to think about what you're saying and try and remember what command you must specifically say to get the point accross, you just speak naturally. It makes life easier. It would be like difference between having a human personal assistant who is just learning your language, or having one who's primary language is the same as your's.

I am very excited about Majel, and typical of Google they are not interested in coming up with a Siri of their own. They are interested in coming up with something that will blow Siri away, and Majel sounds like it will do just that.

edit:
Just one more thing I thought about. It's not only a hassle to have to type in your search query or a text message, or whatever, it's also a danger if you are driving. I have a 45 minute commute and so I send text messages, make phone calls, etc on my commute. When I have my phone in my car dock, I can just tell Vlingo what I want to do and I can keep my eyes on the road more. But I still have to press a few buttons even with Vlingo. But with Majel hopefully it will be smart enough that I will be able to complete entire tasks with voice only, so I can get more done while I am driving and do so safely.


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## Zoso28 (Aug 28, 2011)

If you use the beta Swype app it comes with dragon-dictation which is much better than Google's built in voice dictation. I'm loving it.


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## ThatAndroidShow (Oct 10, 2011)

keeverw said:


> Here is my personal opinion, and why I'm fairly impressed by Siri even though I've never had an iPhone, nor do I ever plan on having an iPhone.
> I really like voice recognition in general, because no matter how great of a predictive keyboard you have (I use SwiftKey-X which is awesome) it is not as quick to type as it is to just speak what you're looking for. If I want to know how many feet are in a mile, I can press the voice search button, and say "how many feet are in a mile" and seconds later, I have the number 5,280 on my screen. Not a browser window with 15 trillion results. Just the answer, and that alone.
> 
> Programs like Siri not only search for what you're looking for, but they sift through a lot of the extraneous search results so you don't have to, and find the most relevant answer.
> ...


That part that you had about Google Translate, I had randomly thought of today. Anywho, I can see so much promise for Majel if it will be integrated with Google apps. Thank you for your detailed analysis, I really appreciated and enjoyed reading it.


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## 45190 (Dec 10, 2011)

Although I think Siri is pretty gimicky, I'm all for Apple doing well because that means Google can't just sit there idle! If Android had like 90% of the marketshare already, do you think something as awesome as ICS would be around? Competition is great because it means we win in the end!


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## DigitalDK (Jun 7, 2011)

ThatAndroidShow said:


> Rumor has it that Google is in the works for their own personal assistant (codenamed Majel) to compete against Apple's Siri. This is hot off the heels of Google purchasing CleverSense and its personal assistant, Alfred, so my question is, will Alfred and Majel complement each other to takedown Siri, or will one take a backseat to the other? Personally, I believe the two together can be the Siri app for Android that we've all been looking for.


That's a really great question. It could go either way I mean look what Google did to Blindtype. It was a great idea but they've used barely any of it if any at all. I hope to see more of it in the future as well as looking forward to seeing what Majel is all about.


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## DigitalDK (Jun 7, 2011)

meijin3 said:


> Although I think Siri is pretty gimicky, I'm all for Apple doing well because that means Google can't just sit there idle! If Android had like 90% of the marketshare already, do you think something as awesome as ICS would be around? Competition is great because it means we win in the end!


You're 100% right! Why do you think Apple spent the past two years pumping out boring lack-luster updates? Not to mention all that last update was a slew of copycat features from Android. However with ICS I expect to see something impressive in the next OS update.


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## 45190 (Dec 10, 2011)

DigitalDK said:


> You're 100% right! Why do you think Apple spent the past two years pumping out boring lack-luster updates? Not to mention all that last update was a slew of copycat features from Android. However with ICS I expect to see something impressive in the next OS update.


Yeah, I used to be a HUGE iOS fan boy until I got my Droid X a year ago. My eyes have certainly been opened especially since Apple hasn't done anything new in the past few years. Google is constantly innovating on their Android platform and I'm so glad I made the jump


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