While we are still waiting for Google’s answer to Siri to arrive, that didn’t stop developers from releasing an “official” version of the personal assistant with personality known as Siri for Android this past Wednesday. The developer, Official App, has released an “official” Pinterest app as well, however if you installed these apps you would have seen that they were just redirects to other things; the Siri app redirected you towards the Google Voice Actions and the Pinterest app redirects you to the mobile site. Well it didn’t take long before Google took a look at these apps and decided that they should be pulled. Although the developer didn’t actually try to dupe anyone with the apps. They were quoted to say:
“Siri, now for your Android device!This application is a Siri icon that opens “Google’s Voice Actions” app.”
In my opinion, this equates to the Google Chrome Icon “app” that redirects to the browser fooling folks into thinking you have Chrome on your Android phone. The thing about these developers though is that with Google’s lack of application checking, they don’t have to worry about going through an application approval process.This means that they can quite quickly create and launch apps that infringe on copyrights and trademarks. Given the boom in Android related malware programs, developers could also hide malware in the app and use a brand/known name to get thousands of folks to install these apps; quickly spreading these malicious files.
I have yet to hear or read about malware being apart of these apps but that’s not to say that down the road they very well could. Google wasted no time in pulling these apps and whether it be copyright infringement or malware related, Google quickly demonstrated their lack of tolerance for such things. So with that said, it will be interesting to see if any other “official” apps from the iPhone make their way to Android and how fast they disappear after. Who knows, maybe if you’re the betting kind you can make a game out of it.
[via The Next Web]
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