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]
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]