“Google has let through a pair of fake Siri apps. Both Siri for Android (Android Market) and Speerit (Android Market) both steal Apple’s icon and, in the case of Speerit, try to clone Siri’s interface,” Electronista reports.
“The currently Korean-only app claims to have ‘real’ Siri, although the differing results on the weather widget suggest it’s not actually asking Apple’s servers,” Electronista reports. “Siri for Android, meanwhile, is blunt in the description and reveals that it’s just a shortcut for Google’s Voice Actions.”
Electronista reports, “Both emphasize a mounting problem with Google’s attitude towards app approvals. Its policy has usually been to apply very few if any checks to apps before they go live, allowing apps that clearly copy someone else’s work. Android Market has recently been home to scam game developers and occasional malware apps that stayed active for days before Google took them down, possibly leading to thousands of frauds and infections.”
Read more in the full article here.
Matt Brian reports for TNW, “‘Siri for Android’ by app publisher ‘Official App’ hit the Android Market, launching on the Google marketplace to deliver what many are going to believe is an official port of Apple’s Siri software to Android smartphones. In reality, it’s a shortcut that launches Google’s built-in Voice Actions — and it’s already been installed on more than 1000 devices.”
“The problem here is that hundreds, if not thousands, of Android device owners have already been sucked in by the app and downloaded it onto their device — smartphone users new to the platform may know no different and download it also,” Brian reports. “Given that Google employs little-to-no checks on its marketplace, developers such as ‘Official App’ do not have contend with application approvals and can launch copyright/trademark infringing applications in minutes. There is also nothing to say that a developer could have sideloaded malware into the app, using the brand name to ensure thousands of installs.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: By definition, Android settlers “know no different” or they would have bought the real thing in the first place and avoided all of this crap to which they’ve consigned themselves for at least two years (being, of course, too cheap to exit a ill-considered contract before the term expires).
What kind of idiot buys a knockoff and expects it to exceed the original? This is Windows all over again. You’re not saving anything, you cheap bastages. You’re costing yourselves time, money (TCO), and enjoyment. Obviously, you should have bought a Mac, as many millions have finally come to realize recently. (You drag ’em to the Mac kicking and screaming and a week later they look to you for forgiveness, asking, “Why the hell did I wait so long?!”)
These aren’t the droids you’re looking for; you wanted an iPhone, you should have gotten yourself an iPhone. Have fun pretending you have Siri, just like you pretend you have iPhones, suckers.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Innovation begets imitation
10, 9 ,8, … Counting down to the cease and desist from Apple to Google.
What is it with Koreans and complete disregard for IP???
I think it’s because the courts let them.
Let’s see, if we pull out of South Korea, let Kim Jung Un invade he will take over Samsung and completely ruin it in a matter of months…
Umm…
Just start drawing down US troop numbers. The S. Korean government will soon enough get the message.
Unfortunately the US government is too busy playing its own geopolitical games to notice how US companies are being hurt by S. Korean companies.
And to all the wannabe necons who will squawk about “abandoning” S. Korea, look at Viet Nam. They’re getting to better and better friends of the US every day. Just like Germany and japan after WWII.
Umm…
I think you’re getting Un confused with Maynard Um, the Rob Enderle clone. Or maybe it’s Um-N-Um. Who knows.
Alex,
Because they have no honor.
For years you heard asian leaders say “honor” as some kind of badge of superiority. When dealing with them them you had to worry about offending their honor. I say that those leaders are gone, those ideals are gone. Possibly the only asian culture that has any slice of honor left are the Japanese. I say good for them.
Observer; on Korean honor…
Reminded me of a maritime lawyer who had Korean shipping clients and noted that when they got in contract disputes they lied to everyone, my lawyer friend, the court, the opposition as did the other side of the dispute.
Lying appears to be ingrained in those guys business culture at least, which gives a bit of a comparison with Samsung that is not flattering.
Because the courts, even US ones say its okay for you Asians to copy American innovation. Specially Apple. They don’t want a US company to succeed and take away sales from Koreans, Chinese, Taiwan…
Korean judges and politicians are just as corrupt, if not more so, than their American counterparts.
Koreans place a very high value on status, wealth & power.
They have a ‘sort-of’ caste system and are taught to give greater respect to ‘their betters’ (the ones with all the money, power, influence, went to the ‘right schools’, live in the ‘right neighborhoods’, etc.), than to those that aren’t.
Koreans, for a large part, live by the Golden Rule: ‘He that has the gold…’
To Fandango: It’s not just the Koreans. This is true everywhere. They are just dressed and named differently.
no diffelently. da same. all look arike.
ayaaah! dam spellcheka
dats “all rook arike”
I fully expect Fake Siri settlers to show up here and troll. I’m laughing just thinking about it. 😆
You mean like me?
You troll, but, you are not quite stupid enough to think Fake Siri is the real thing.
Oh, I dunno, BLN is pretty darn stupid.
Siridroid is realz yo!
I sayed things sirisdroid anser back eric shm8dt is my god.
It realz yo!