Ask Ziggy — Siri’s Windows Phone equivalent

Siri was the saving grace of the iPhone 4S, and now there’s a Windows Phone equivalent in the form of “Ask Ziggy“. Ziggy, a free app available now for download from the Windows Marketplace, is one user’s attempt to usurp Siri.

Although impressive, Ask Ziggy does not have the vocal chops of Siri but makes up for it by offering many of the functions which iPhone 4S users have been privy to: status updates, directions, general queries and even mathematical queries. It’s powerful, and free. What’s not to like?

The vocal recognition portion of Ask Ziggy is based on Nuance, an uber-popular platform which recently merged with rival Vlingo.

Leib explains how his project works on the Windows Phone platform:

“Ask Ziggy uses Speech Recognition to translate human speech into transcribed text, which is displayed in a speech bubble. The transcribed text is analysed for patterns to detect commands or general queries. Commands are interpreted and routed to routine phone tasks such as emailing, texting, calling, social network updates, and getting directions.”

Leib adds that “web scraping and mash-up technologies” are used to scour the web for relevant answers. Answers are matched, summarised and displayed on Ziggy. If Ziggy cannot find an answer, a speech prompt directs the user to various web results.

Leib has further plans for Ziggy. Language translations, multilingual support and developing the grammar recognition are on the cards. Currently the only downside to Ziggy is the very minimalistic (read: ugly) interface which barely scratches the clean yet detailed look of Siri. A few more development cycles should deliver an exceptional product which delivers hope to the Windows Phone users stuck in a cold, Siri-free world.