Nuance Prepares For Deep iOS 5 Integration, Acquires Noterize For iPad

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Noterize-for-iPad

Noterize, the popular note-taking app for the iPad mysteriously vanished from the App Store recently, with no indication of the reason for its disappearance. However, news that a takeover by voice technology company Nuance may be to blame, and could spell exciting things to come for voice recognition in iOS 5.

Noterize was one of those few applications that distinguished itself enough to feature in one of Apple’s TV commercials for the iPad back in January. Its recent absence from the App Store left customers wondering why the app had been pulled, but TUAW has learned a recent acquisition by Nuance is the likely cause — a move which indicates some of the voice technologies we can look forward to with the launch of iOS 5 this fall.

TUAW’s Michael Rose explains why the takeover of Noterize is a particularly interesting one:

If all the rumors swirling around the newly enhanced relationship between Apple and Nuance are true, specifically for the integration of voice recognition at the system level in iOS 5, then there will have to be showcase apps ready this fall to take advantage of the new features. It only makes sense that Nuance itself would want to brand such an app, and make it work spectacularly well with voice recognition.

The purchase of Noterize suggests that Nuance will take the already exceptional foundations laid by the app’s initial developers and build upon them with the voice recognition technologies that the company is famous for. Voice recognition in a app like this would allow users to make notes and annotate documents and presentations quicker than ever before.

Right now, Noterize is still absent from the App Store, but my guess is that it will reappear — packed with voice recognition technology — right around the same time iOS 5 launches later this year.

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