Android Adds "Spoken Commands"

[jpishgar]

Google just came out with news that they are adding 12 new voice actions for Android - phone calls, reminder emails, direction search etc. It's called Voice Search and is up now on the Android Market.

I haven't had much luck with the voice search in the google search app itself on various topics, but it seems to work very well with asking it to find you the local spots which are fairly common names. Like saying "McDonalds" or "gas station" and then your zip code works really well.

I wonder how this added functionality will pan out. Voice commands (ala Star Trek) are the holy grail, but I don't think we're there yet. If anyone can get us there, it's probably Google. What do you think?

 

[buwish]

I really hope that the spoken commands thing works out with the Android platform. I have an app on Blackberry that does essentially the same thing and lets you text while driving by saying what you want to text. Thing is, it doesn't work to good, much less the native command options. On Windows Mobile (i.e. 6.1 and 6.5), such commands were a joke and a half.

Improvements are on the way!

 

[jeroly]

I'm having good results with the voice recognition but it's annoying that it doesn't yet work with the clock app for setting the alarm, and that it doesn't work with either the standard music player or my preferred tunewiki app...pandora is really hit-or-miss as to whether it will actually play music by the requested performer/composer.

 

[Major7up]

It really is hit or miss with Google in this department, sometimes working very well and others not so much. I had a Samsung Instinct prior to owning a Moto Droid and while there is no comparison in most ways to the far superior Droid, I really have to hand it to Samsung here. The voice dial feature on the Instinct was the best I have used so far hands down. I simply pushed the voice dial button on the side and spoke my command such as 'Call Dad Home' and it usually got it right on the first try. You could set it to just dial or verify your command. If you chose to verify and the first option was not what you wanted you could respond 'no' and it would move to option two which might be 'Dan' rather than 'Dad'. You could do this all hands free save for the initial button press. I also like the fact that this software was running on the device rather than Google's method of recording and sending over the network for processing. That meant it would work whether data was available or not.
I am disappointed that to use voice dialing on Android, you have to initiate a voice search and then it finds a match to auto dial and it's wrong you have to hit another button. Also if it was not sure you have to manually select from a list. Lastly, Unless I intentionally mispronounce my fathers name 'Kevin' when doing a voice dial and I say 'Call Kevin Home' it always seems to want to do a web search for 'Call Kevin Home'. It never fails. I have even selected not to use web in search in the settings for voice search and it normally does not...except in that one case.

The next step for Google really is to make it truly hands free. I should be able to tap something to initiate the feature and then it should become totally hands free from there. They have a long way to go to be on par with where my Instinct was in that department.