When users address siri on the iphone or ipad with the google device’s intended phrase, "OK, glass," the voice recognition software responds with mocking phrases like "I think the glass(es) is half empty.".
Or it warns against strapping the phone to your forehead and replies: "winking does nothing for me". It’s the first time that apple has used the sharp rivalry with google with such pinpricks.
A similarly playful and biting answer from the internet company was not long in coming. A spokesman told the wall street journal blog digits on behalf of google glass: "siri, it’s me, not you." glass got to know google voice search and fell for it. "She not only listens, she understands me."
Apple and google try out different ways in the new market of small portable electronic devices. While google is betting on data glasses with a camera and a small screen in front of the eye, apple is working under high pressure on a computer watch, according to media reports.
Siri, launched just under two years ago, is designed to enable users to communicate with their iphones by voice. You can, for example, create an appointment, set a wake-up time or organize a call. Google is pursuing a vision that is at least as ambitious with its google now service, which is also supposed to alert users to upcoming appointments and warn them of traffic problems on their way, for example.
Apple tried from the beginning to give siri a cheeky personality and a sense of humor. For example, the software has funny answers for marriage applications or questions about your parents and reacts appropriately to movie quotes. Even jabs at the competition are nothing new for apple: for example, in the tv advertising campaign "get a mac," which ran from 2006 to 2009, competitor microsoft was taken to task ironically. Recently, however, apple has been more reserved, while its current arch-rival samsung has repeatedly made fun of iphone users in commercials.