iPhone 5G

We have received several reports that Apple is strengthening ties with the company Nuance to develop voice recognition software. It is hoped that this will allow them to match and hopefully supersede such capabilities as exist on Google's Android iphone 5g.

Existing voice recognition software on iOS has been in the past provided by Microsoft, however as it developed an inferior reputation to Google's Android's abilities it seems that this development is an attempt by Apple to strengthen its place as industry leader in the phone market.

Competition between Apple and Google has become increasingly fierce over the past couple of years; with Apple adding Microsoft Bing support and it's own 'Google Maps' clone, it has increasingly come to see Google as it's prime competitor rather than partner.

It is in this context that this move must be seen and it's likely that rather than any strategic disagreement between Apple and Microsoft, Apples move towards Nuance is simply due to them being able to design better software.

Rumors on the internet are also declaring that Apples massive data center in North Carolina is already utilizing Nuance voice recognition technology and that this integration occurred in defiance of Microsoft demands that their software be better integrated into iOS5.

Running Nuance software in Apples data center is beneficial for numerous  reasons, firstly it allows them to build upon the software as they see fit, without having to run it through third party servers first. It would also allow them to process data much faster, compared to having to send data to Nuance servers and then wait for it to come back again.

So why did Apple decide to partner with Nuance? The answer to this is is to do with who owns the patents that underlay voice recognition technology, the vast majority of them belonging to Nuance and Google. Given the fact that almost all the worlds voice recognition experts work for these two companies, Apple didn't really have a choice in going with Nuance if they were to develop new and Google beating software.

What this all means for Apple fans anticipating the WWDC coming up this summer is that the Apple/Nuance partnership is likely to play a big role in Apples new cloud initiative which is set to be a huge part of iOS5. Whether prospective developers will get any further insight to this at the WWDC is as of yet to be known.

Here's more on the iPhone 5g