Evi app aims to outdo Siri

True Knowledge has released a new voice control app to contend with Apple’s Siri assistant.

The Evi app is being made available on both Google’s Android platform and Apple’s iOS. It’s free on Android but will cost Apple fans 69p.

The big claim here is that Evi will be much more useful to users outside of the US who’ve found Siri’s location-based services somewhat lacking.

In terms of functionality, Evi operates along very similar lines to Siri. You press a button, ask a question and wait for an answer.

Evi can answer quite a diverse range of questions, though, it cannot perform some typical Siri functions such as altering your calendar schedule just yet.

Evi is, however, in the beta stage and development is set to continue. It seems fairly likely functionality will be updated to be even more competitive with Siri in time.

According to True Knowledge, Evi knows nearly a billion facts and can somehow ‘infer’ trillions more through tends of thousands of subject ‘classes’.

What this means is that you get detailed answers to questions where Siri will simply shrug its proverbial shoulders and suggest you search the web. This is in part due to the fact that it searches from a variety of sources, including Google and Yelp, and it’ll also use the phone’s built-in GPS to contextualise responses.

TechCrunch cites a couple of good examples. If you ask Siri how to make an apple pie it’ll suggest a web search, while Evi will give you a list of linked recipies.

Likewise, Siri will often be fairly unhelpful if you ask about a historical figure. Evi, on the other hand, will provide an explanation of who the person was, their birth date and other relevant information including other related figures from their lifetime.

The iPhone version synchronises with Nuance technology thanks to a licensing agreement, hence the 69p pricing.

You can get hold of Evi on iTunes and the Android Market now.