Siri, the app that is billed as your personal assistant, was bought by Apple recently. While no official announcement has been made, the proper FTC merger announcement making it all but official.

Siri is a voice controlled app that interfaces with lots of web based services providing you access t data like movie show times, events, local businesses, etc. Take a look at this demo video of Siri to get an idea of the power of the app:

My guess is that we’ll see Siri integrated into the OS to replace the less than stellar Voice Control. It would make great sense to increase the quality and the features of Voice Control. Hopefully we’ll see this in iPhone OS 4, but if not I’d expect it quickly after in an update.

Go ahead and grab Siri and give it a preview right now. How would you like to see Apple use this technology on the iPhone?

Siri Assistant

Category: Productivity
Released: 2010-02-05
Price: FREE

[via TechCrunch]

[ Apple Buys Siri — Replacement for Voice Control? is a post from 148Apps ]

It seems like we’ve been waiting decades for Nokia to release their next N-Series device. Long rumoured, the N8 has finally arrived.

Well, it’s finally been announced. It actually arrives in Q3 this year, so it’s a good 4-6 months away still.

But it’s a looker and it boasts a specifications page about 8 screens long on my browser.

At an expected retail price of around 370 / 320 / $494, it’s going to fit beautifully into the mobile operator stack, free for contract subscribers (I estimate) at somewhere around 30-35 per month.

Notable features include the 12 megapixel camera that will capture 720p H.264 video at 30 frames per second. Plus there’s Nokia’s famed Xenon flash, 16GB memory on-board with support for a further 32GB via memory card.

Qt support has arrived with the N8, too. I have been banging on about Qt for quite a while now and it’s something that mobile developers focus upon closely. You’ll be able to write apps using the Qt developer environment that will run beautifully on the N8. Check out qt.nokia.com for more information and to download the IDE.

The third edition of Symbian (“Symbian ^3 for Nokia”) also makes an appearance so it’s going to be interesting to see how that functions on the device. Indeed, the whole N8 experience is something that deserves further investigation. The zippy, flashy, gorgeous promo videos may well do the handset justice. But we have been there before though, haven’t we?

I’m excited to see how the N8 performs. It’s shaping up to be one of the company’s top handsets, the specifications are fantastic, the Ovi Store is integrated as are the now-familiar Ovi suite of services (including unrestricted Ovi Maps navigation and voice directions).

The device looks promising. I think the N8 experience may well surprise and delight. Will it be enough to persuade customers to turn away from a similarly priced iPhone or Android device? We shall see. There’s a lot of love in the room for Nokia.

Find out more and check out the whizzy videos here: http://europe.nokia.com/find-products/devices/nokia-n8

Here’s the video that I promised featuring Gayle Guildford of the Baltimore Police Department discussing the deployment of InterAct’s PocketCop for BlackBerry.

Download M4V Video | Subscribe to Podcast | Embed video

Also: check out Tomi Ahonen’s opinion on the deployment of PocketCop.

Just 40 days before the start of WWDC, Apple has finally announced the dates for WWDC, their annual developer conference. And there are some major changes this year.

WWDC will be held in San Francisco, at Moscone Convention Center West from June 7th-11th. The ticket price has risen this year to $1599 and are available through the Apple Developer portal.

The big changes this year are a definite slant toward the iPhone OS and the iPhone/iPad devices. Last year, sessions were split between Mac OS, Enterprise IT and iPhone OS sessions. This year there’s hardly anything but iPhone OS. Though a few of the sessions do apply to Enterprise IT, they are iPhone focused.

Read More at 148Apps.biz

[ Apple (finally) Announces WWDC Dates is a post from 148Apps ]

This Android smartphone is notable for its large touch display and 8-megapixel camera, plus Sony Ericsson’s Mediascape and Timescape software. Other features include WiFi, stereo Bluetooth, memory card slot, and GPS navigation.