We have just submitted Friends Aloud 3.0, with Nuance-powered (Siri-like) speech recognition to the App Store. If they approve in the usual week or so, it should go live towards the end of next week. We are all excited to have this one almost in the hands of our loyal users.

Tweets Aloud 3.0, with similar new features, is in beta and following hot on the heels of Friends Aloud 3.0. It could make it to the App Store as early as next week, too.

We were delighted to read a Forbes article about how Apple stock could more than double on the sheer power of Siri. As a developer who is exending Siri's speech recognition to the several million existing iOS devices, not just the latest and greatest iPhone 4S, we are sympathetic about what that article's author had to say about the importance of speech recognition to the future of mobile devices:

• Siri is bringing in new customers who were previously Android users or who were not using smart phones.  I initially drew this preliminary conclusion from my conversations with a number of AT&T store managers.  Now there is a variety of data from a number of sources supporting this conclusion. 
• Siri increases stickiness of Apple phones.  High stickiness means that once someone starts using Siri they are unlikely to switch.  When asked to call my wife, Siri responded with question wanting to know which one of my contacts was my wife.   After about 10 minutes, when I again asked Siri to call my wife, it knew who my wife was.  Imagine Siri learning about you and what you do for two years and then giving up Siri for an Android phone that does not know you!
• In due course Siri will migrate search revenues from Google (GOOG) to Apple.
• Siri raises the bar for Google Android and Microsoft (MSFT) Mango to compete. 

We at VoiZapp, like Apple, believe that the future of mobile devices is speech-enabled!