Maluuba to Siri: Shhh!

 Maluuba's developers don't mince words (pun intended). They specifically call the app a "Siri alternative", although they also prefer to refer to Maluuba as a "do engine".

You can't help but compare the two; both Siri and Maluuba are 'personal virtual assistants' that interpret what you say to them, and provide you with all of the help and information that your Internet-connected smartphone can offer. Oddly enough, the more that I used Maluuba, I also thought about Google Now (the Android Jelly Bean Siri), and even Windows 8.

I dare you to NOT think of Metro or Windows Phone when you first bring up Maluuba's interface. The tiles are a dead ringer for Microsoft's mobile-generation UI design (which may be good or bad depending on your experiences with Windows 8). Personally, I find Maluuba to be exceptionally clean and user-friendly, and that's a big point in its favor even when you decide to forego voice interaction for a more traditional multi-touch experience.

Speaking of which: compared to Siri, the first drastic difference is that Maluuba won't talk back. This may be a deal-breaker if you're serious about keeping your eyes on the road, or simply like that virtual conversation, but for me it's a major benefit. Judging by the number of other people who love Siri's capacity for assistance but have grown tired of the sound of her voice, I'm not alone by any means.

What Maluuba does best is process your voice input and decide which of the many smartphone tasks you need it to do for you. Maluuba will access your contact list and immediately let you place calls, or compose hands-free texts and emails. Maluuba will integrate with all of your scheduling apps for everything from calendar events and reminders to alarm clocks and timers. Opening apps, playing songs, bringing up sites in your browser... all of this and more.

Yes, Siri does pretty much all of that, too. Where Maluuba pulls ahead is in its integration with web APIs -- 18 of them already, with an open SDK for developers to include more as time goes on. At the time of this writing, Maluuba can get the conditions from Weather Underground, look up Wikipedia, post status updates for you on Facebook and Twitter, access Wolfram Alpha's computational genius, cruise local places on Yelp and Foursquare, and mine the movie geek goodness of Rotten Tomatoes. All you have to do is ask, and you don't even have to be nice about it.

There's no doubt that the natural-language programming is more sophisticated than the vast majority of voice-control apps on the market (for any mobile OS). If you're the mischievous and

savvy type, you can trip up Maluuba on purpose... but when it comes to day-to-day commands and queries, you won't find yourself repeating your words very often. A few days with Maluuba doesn't really compare to the time that I've spent with Siri (over a year now), but my initial impression is that both have about an 80-90% chance of understanding me the first time.

As far as giving me the answers that I need, I'm going to say that Maluuba has an edge. Maluuba's contextual approach (incorporating user location and contact lists, among other factors) seems more likely to deliver personally useful results. It won't quite deliver the "predictive" recommendations that Google Now / Google Instant integration promises, but then again it won't weigh you down with unasked-for recommendations and notifications, either.

As I said before, you can get all of Maluuba's assistance without saying a word; typing (also with exceptional natural-language interpretation) and multi-touch control still gives you every bit of Maluuba's functions and access to APIs. Although both Siri and Maluuba can act as a flexible frontend for your smartphone's many functions, turning off voice takes a lot of Siri's luster away -- while Maluuba still improves upon most stock Android UIs for the majority of daily needs.

I won't even pretend that Maluuba is 'far better than Siri in every way.' There's a definite streamlined integration that you get with pretty much every Apple product, and Maluuba instead still feels like an Android app -- something that rides on top of other functions and features, and doesn't quite live there. Siri was designed to make iPhone users' lives easier and more productive, while Maluuba sometimes struggles to accommodate the more varied Android experience. Plus, it doesn't talk back -- which may be reason enough to prefer it or discard it. 

About the Author: 

 Porter is a tech geek. He loves staying up on all the new gadgets. When he isn’t looking into the new upcoming tech he is a writer on internet services and CenturyLinkQuote.

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