The Iphone Blog

Robots! I have these incredible creatures of technology on the brain lately, as Transformers 3 takes over the few blocks around my office in Chicago to film some stellar destruction scenes and as more and more robot-themed games and apps invade the App Store. You see everything from games featuring killer robots to quirky entertainment apps with robots that look more like JohnnyFive than the Terminator.

One particular robot app that works like the classic Speak & Spell game released in June called Type N Talk took the No. 1 spot for free apps this week. It’s amazingly accurate, a guarantee for at least 10 solid minutes of fun, and free. So what other talking robots are lurking through the App Store?

Check out 5 other talking robot apps after the jump

Type n Talk
Price: FREE

The app description says one user used Type N Talk to propose to his girlfriend. Word of advice: Don’t do that. However, you can use the app for a variety of other everyday activities. The app will speak, or at least attempt to speak, anything you type in one of those robotic voices. It generally does a fantastic job of pronouncing words, phrases, and sentences correctly, but, of course, certain words just sound funnier coming from a robotic voice.

The Bebot robot doesn’t exactly talk, but you can make his mouth make sounds, as well as distort said sounds. The music app is a fun synthesizer with multitouch control that lets you play four different notes solo or simultaneously, using filters and looping features. (VIDEO)

The Tick Talk robot is obviously not as cute as Bebot—he’s actually kind of scary-looking, right?—but he’s arguably much more practical and usable. Tick Talk wakes you in the morning with a friendly greeting of “Good morning, sir,” in a “sophisticated robot butler” voice. (What, no love for the ladies in the greeting?) The robot butler will then read you your morning news headlines based on your customized RSS feed. The welcoming voice doesn’t exactly match that scary, animated exterior, but it’s a really fun novelty to explore for an app. (VIDEO)

This one works just like Type N Talk but with a cartoonish robot with a boombox for a head. There’s also the added feature of the memory bank that helps Boombot remember past phrases you’ve asked him to say. (VIDEO)

What app could be better than one modeled after the actual Speak & Spell vintage toy? Though you don’t exactly ask the app to speak words, you can still get the “robot” to talk to you. There are more than 200 words and phrases, and a full alphabet recorded from the Speak & Spell toy itself. The app is actually made for DJs to use when mixing, but anyone who has heard of the toy would get some entertainment out of it. (VIDEO)

Here’s the weirdest twist on talking robot apps: PhotoSpeak turns a still image of you into a talking robot. Upload a picture from your library, use your touchscreen to control how you want the person in the image to move or be animated, then record your voice to make the image talk and move. Don’t think it will actually work? Check out the video.

Leave a Reply