Google Now, the company’s answer to Apple’s Siri voice-activated “assistant,” has been available for around nine months on (some, but not most) Android-based phones and tablets. But today, iPhone and iPad users will have the option of chatting with Siri or Google Now, as it rolls out as part of a software update to the Google Search app on iOS.

The irony is, as Business Insider points out, a large number of Android users still don’t have access to Google Now because their phones are still running on earlier versions of the operating system.

Google Now requires that Android devices run Jelly Bean, the most current version of the OS. But Google’s own statistics show that only 25% of users are running Jelly Bean, while previous iterations Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread each have higher install bases (29.3% and 39.8%, respectively).

[via AP]

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