Apple Buys Siri To Increase Competition With Google

There are a lot of applications available in the Apple iTunes App Store, so if you miss one or two there's probably no reason to feel bad. Whether the personal assistant application Siri falls into that category is better suited as a personal question, but if you were to ask Apple, it seems that missing that particular application may have been the wrong move Why? They liked it enough to buy the company behind it.

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Apple has gone through the process of acquiring the personal assistant application called Siri, which was made by the company of the same name. Siri itself is a personal assistant application at heart, but the contents of this particular application are quite robust. By utilizing a threaded message-like User Interface, you simply ask Siri something, like "Where Avatar is playing," and the application will pull up relevant movie theaters, along with information how to purchase tickets from your phone.

According to Robert Scoble, who initially broke the news, the whole thing could have gone down for somewhere in the ballpark of $200 million. Small numbers to Apple, but we imagine that the purchase has set some high expectations for the Cupertino-based company, and they plan on making all of that back plus some. If they can find a way to integrate the intuitive application in any way shape or form, Apple would probably have a hit on their hands. Check out the video below for a quick run-down of what Siri is.

[via Scobleizer]