I stopped by to watch the the release of the iPhone 4S at the Apple store in Birmingham. The Apple Store employees ran down the 250 metre long queue, shouting and hollering in the minutes leading up to eight o’clock. As the moment grew closer, the employees began a countdown. When it reached zero, they each grabbed a person or two in the queue and ushered them into the store, applauding as they did so.<\/p>\n
As an Android fan, it was all rather surreal. Beyond the one actual innovation (Siri), the iPhone 4S is a rather small upgrade, particularly when you compare an iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S both running iOS5 – if you’ve got an iPhone 4S skin<\/a> on, you can’t tell the difference. Make no mistake, Siri’s a great application, but it’s not as unique a proposition as Apple (or certain over-excited journalists<\/a>) would have you believe.<\/p>\n Having used Siri myself, there are a few\u00a0limitations. For one thing, at the moment it can only look for locations and businesses in the US. That’s a bit of a let-down for the English, as it removes a fair amount of things you can do. The dour English voice is also less interesting than the American one as well. Finally, while the speech recognition is good, my Android phone, listening to the same phrase, more often correctly identified what I was saying.<\/p>\n Let’s have a look at some of the alternatives for Android — none stand up to Siri in its totality, but with five good apps to choose from you should be able to find something that works for you.<\/p>\n5. Sonalight Text by Voice<\/h3>\n