You may remember earlier this month when it was discovered that Siri, the voice activated personal assistant software on Apple’s iPhone 4S, gave an unexpected answer when asked about the best smartphone. It seems that when you asked Siri what the best smartphone ever was, she responded that the the Windows Phone-based Nokia Lumia 900 was best.
Apple, much like Snow White’s wicked stepmother, didn’t like their magic mirror telling customers that another smartphone was the fairest in the land, and reprogrammed Siri. Now instead of performing a Wolfram Alpha search when you ask Siri what the best smartphone ever is, she responds with “the one you’re holding.”
Now it looks like Apple isn’t the only wicked stepmother with magic mirror problems. The Inquirer recently discovered that S Voice, the totally-not-a-Siri-clone voice assistant software on the new Galaxy S III, returns its own unexpected answer when asked which smartphone is fairest in the land. S Voice, though, gives a slightly different answer. Whereas Siri picked the Lumia 900 based on Wolfram Alpha’s results, S Voice searches Best Buy review data and comes up with, of all things, the HTC 7 Trophy. Check it out for yourself (image courtesy of The Inquirer):
Now, the HTC 7 Trophy doesn’t really measure up as a candidate for best smartphone ever, being as it’s getting rather old. What’s really interesting, though, is that both Siri and S Voice showed a Windows Phone-based device when asked about the best smartphone. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Windows Phone is better than iOS or Android, but given the sources for the two programs’ information (customer reviews), it’s pretty clear that Windows Phone is at least as popular among its fans as iOS and Android are among theirs.
Of course, as with Siri, don’t expect S Voice to keep returning this result forever. Samsung is bound to have a fix in the works already, assuming they’ve heard about this little easter egg. Of course, Samsung probably won’t be sending HTC off for a stroll in the woods with an armed huntsman (though they might like to). Instead, Samsung will probably do the same as Apple and make some tweaks to S Voice’s backend so that it will give users the “right” answer.