Apple to Pull Evi From App Store for Competing With Siri

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Posted February 26, 2012 at 8:38pm by Shalom Levytam

Apple has informed True Knowledge, the developer of Evi, that it will be removing its voice assistant from the App Store for being similar to Siri, reports TechCrunch.

On Friday evening True Knowledge had a call from Apple representative Richard Chipman. (If you Google Richard Chipman's name you'll find he is also the Apple rep that does the controversial calls about apps). He told True Knowledge that Apple was "going to pull Evi from the appstore" as it was similar to Siri.

Apple is citing rule 8.3 in the App Store Terms and Conditions which states: "Apps which appear confusingly similar to an existing Apple product or advertising theme will be rejected."

True Knowledge CEO William Tunstall-Pedoe told TechCrunch: "I don't think it takes too much of a leap of the imagination to realise that 'confusingly similar' is code for 'competitive with' – and that all the user and press reviews along the lines of 'now you don't need to buy a 4S – you can download Evi', 'better than Siri' etc. have resulted in a change of heart from Apple about allowing its users to get the app."

Hopefully some media outrage will prevent Apple from pulling the plug on Evi. In case it doesn't, grab the app using the link below...

Evi Features:
• Voice or text input - Chat to Evi in plain English and she will understand
• Local information for UK and USA - Shopping, news, dining and more. Evi knows where you are and gives answers based on your location
• One tap words - Allowing you to build your question super-fast
• Built in browser - No need to swap to a different browser, view web links within Evi's app
• A learning and adapting intelligence - Rate Evi's answers to help her learn more about the world
• More than a search engine - Evi takes the searching out of search, able to review and compare nearly a billion facts from her database to give you exactly what you need

You can purchase Evi from the App Store for $0.99, for now.

Read More [via TechCrunch]

Apple to Pull Evi From App Store for Competing With Siri

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Bungandy - February 27, 2012 at 3:52pm

Will you buy/change to iphone4 just for Siri???

Anon - February 27, 2012 at 9:10pm

No, I'll buy an iPhone 4S for the dual core cpu, better gpu and dual antenna. Siri??? Not so important and no reason why it can't be done on the iPhone but if it's there...

Anon - February 27, 2012 at 3:09pm

No where near as good as Siri. No offence but evi was rubbish. Read the reviews on the app store. Many reviews rated it at 1 star and that is why Apple is pulling it even if they don't say so. The app should never have been approved until it was ready.

The Siri Twin - February 27, 2012 at 2:54pm

One word for those that are JB.... Sara. Evi is/was nothing close to Siri, Sara on the otherhand might just be better soon.

nir-hus - February 27, 2012 at 1:19pm

Evi should switch latter rally to Cydia. Its reach in terms of users is much lower (most iPhones are not JailBroken), but better than nothing. Furthermore, they will have much more room to maneuver and develop their App further. Nir Hus MD., PhD, General Surgery, Trauma and Critical Care Medicine. Miami Florida http://www.NirHus.com http://www.Nir-Hus.org @NirHus

Rajiv - February 27, 2012 at 1:32am

I guess all of those SMS and calendar apps on the App Store will be removed soon then, right?

Matt - February 27, 2012 at 10:10pm

I'd have to agree there. Evi's speech recognition is pretty darn good, but the replies suck. Siri does s much more since it integrates with the operating system. Especially since Evi currently doesn't do that.

Hey - February 27, 2012 at 12:54am

I understand some might be frustrated by this, but you have to admit it was only a matter of time before Apple pulled the plug on this and any other app trying to compete with Siri. Apple has previously removed many apps that compete with or duplicate stock apps and functionality.

Lm - February 26, 2012 at 11:47pm

Isn't that called a monopoly? This is what Microsoft was done for. This is pretty lame from apple not to mention that Siri is not even theirs, they bought an existing program. Everyday i read news about apple that piss me off big time, that's why I wish them all the worst for the future.

mavrik101 - February 26, 2012 at 10:05pm

Furthermore there are other apps like, VoiceActions Speaktoit

walcy - February 26, 2012 at 9:36pm

it is weird, i didn't even know evi had really had such a huge success. Also there are tons of good apps out there that already do a good job just as vlingo, voice actions, and others that i can't remember at this time, but yes i agree they need to just make siri deeper integrated into the ios, take notes from what people are doing in the jailbreak community. Just a few tweaks they have done with siri are: start my car, bluetooth on, blue tooth off, wifi off/on, flashlight on, twitter/facebook status update, custom commands/responses, just to name a few.

boreddrummer - February 26, 2012 at 9:47pm

are you nuts it's exactly what steve jobs would have done

walcy - February 26, 2012 at 9:59pm

I understand your comment, I am just saying why only go after evi, why not the other's they all do the same thing as evi does right?

Tico - February 26, 2012 at 9:36pm

Is Apple giving refunds to people who bought it?

Bolocz - February 26, 2012 at 8:55pm

Lucky I got mine before the pull! And I have to admit its(in terms of voice recognition )is better than Siri !

mavrik101 - February 26, 2012 at 10:06pm

Seriously - you think it is better then Siri?