( CNN ) -- The only scene I really loved in `` Star Trek : The Voyage Home '' was when Scotty tried speaking verbal commands to a Macintosh Plus . Keyboards always seem to get in the way of doing what I want to do -- and nowhere is this as apparent , or frustrating , as on smartphones and tablets . With the recent launch of the iPhone 4S , Apple 's not-really-new voice recognition system Siri has been getting a lot of attention . Yet it took the India-based software company Dexetra just eight hours to create the initial version of Iris -- a blatant Android knockoff of Siri . Even the name `` Iris , '' which is the reverse of `` Siri , '' stands for `` Intelligent Rival Imitator of Siri '' according to Dexetra 's blog . ( And yes , I 'm just waiting for the trademark suit from Apple . ) Granted , Dexetra was n't starting completely from scratch . This company had already been working on natural language processing and machine learning -- two notably thorny , complex technologies -- for more than a year . A few days later , Dexetra made an improved version of Iris available as a free app in Google 's Android Market and as of this writing it has been installed more than 50,000 times . I put Iris on my Android phone this weekend , and it 's amusing . For instance , here 's a discussion I had with Iris yesterday : . Me : `` What time is the John Scofield concert at Yoshi 's Jazz Club in Oakland tonight ? '' Iris : `` I have no idea . '' Me : `` Who is John Scofield ? '' Iris : `` John Scofield , born 1951 , the musician . '' ( Shows a photo of Scofield performing . ) Me : `` Where is Yoshi 's , Oakland ? '' Iris : `` Right now being pulled in by a black hole . '' So Iris is about as entertaining as Siri seems to be . ( I do n't own an iPhone , but for comparison I 've been checking out the STSS Tumblr blog , a crowdsourced collection of weird and wonderful wisdom from Siri . ) Still , neither Iris nor Siri seems very useful so far . Fortunately , there are better voice control options on both the iPhone and Android handsets than either Siri or Iris . And they 've been around for a while . For some time the Android mobile operating system has had pretty well integrated speech-to-text functionality ( Google Voice Actions ) . I use this often for texting , searching , navigating and e-mailing on the go . Also , whenever I bring up a keyboard in any Android app , there 's a microphone option for voice entry . Generally it recognizes pretty well what I want to say or do . If Android guesses wrong , I can use the keyboard to correct it , and it does seem to learn over time . Then there is Vlingo , a voice control app for all the major smartphone platforms . I 've tried it , and for some tasks it works reasonably well . On the iPhone , Siri does integrate with some of Apple 's own productivity tools ( such as the calendar ) . But as my CNN.com colleague Mark Milian pointed out , Siri ca n't yet execute many basic commands like taking a picture . Most importantly , Siri does n't integrate with any third-party iOS apps , such as Shazam or Tweetdeck . Given Apple 's closed iOS ecosystem , it 's an open question whether such integration will ever happen . Besides Siri , there are other iOS apps and tools that provide some voice control . ExtremeTech recently published a list . Such baby steps are important -- but on any mobile platform , we 're still a long , long way from phones that you can just talk to and they 'll do what you say . This is frustrating from the consumer perspective . Smartphones are , first and foremost , phones . They 're supposed to be for talking . Typing on any mobile device , through a physical or virtual keyboard , is a chore . That 's why QR codes are getting popular -- they eliminate the need to type on a mobile device . The challenge of typing on handheld devices is exactly why the kind of voice control Scotty expected is such an alluring and intuitive idea . Eventually we 'll probably get there . The opinions expressed in this post are solely those of Amy Gahran .
Android has had pretty well integrated speech-to-text functionality . It took software company Dexetra tonight to create the initial version of Android . A blatant Shazam of Scofield -- `` Iris '' is the reverse of `` Iris