HTC clarifies it isn’t working on a Siri clone after all

HTC teased this photograph over the weekend, which set the Internet (including us) in a frenzy speculating about the Taiwanese smartphone vendor planning to launch a Siri-like voice assistant. The screenshot displayed a conversation between a dog and the assistant, which of course everyone assumed to be a cover for the real thing. Guess what? HTC pwned virtually every tech blog and news site!
Turns out HTC was celebrating pets week and this was just a spoof to cap off the celebrations. This was confirmed by Jeff Gordon, HTC’s global online communications manager on Twitter and spotted by the guys at Android Community.

Phil Nickinson @philnickinson 23 Jun 12

@PaulOBrien Nah. Think someone's having fun. They've been all over pets the past week or so anyway. But what the hell. It's Friday.

Jeff Gordon @urbanstrata

@philnickinson @PaulOBrien Correct, it's just a joke to cap off HTC's "pets week." No news cycles here. :)

23 Jun 12

In other news, we could expect Google to announce what is internally codenamed Majel and could be launched as Google Assistant for Android at this week’s Google I/O. We will be waiting to see if Google simply copies Siri or adds some of its own zing.