Voice Control option(s) for 3G?? [Archive]

ngenerator

Jun 11, 2009, 06:50 PM

ngenerator

Jun 13, 2009, 02:38 AM

Dudes, seriously... Does anyone have any information on a Voice Control App on Cydia that rivals the gd 3gS? That's the one "update" I really care about...:confused:

ViViDboarder

Jun 13, 2009, 10:06 AM

Dudes, seriously... Does anyone have any information on a Voice Control App on Cydia that rivals the gd 3gS? That's the one "update" I really care about...:confused:

Yea, it's kinda stupid that the voice control isn't supposed to be a 3.0 feature but a 3Gs feature. It's obviously a software implementation! Also, they've already written it! Why not just allow it on the 3G? It's a feature that many phones already have and you finally implement it for you iPhone but then give it to only a handful of your customers... What?

Rather than a replacement on Cydia, I'd think it's more likely someone cracks the 3Gs version and just makes it work on the 3G. Same with tethering on AT&T.

I don't know why AT&T doesn't do what it does with all it's other phones and charge $30/mo to tether and I don't know why Apple wouldn't release Voice Control for the 3G.

And I was excited for 3.0 too... Oh well.

ngenerator

Jun 15, 2009, 12:40 PM

I swear I've read some posts about users who have this "option" on their phones, yet I still haven't figured anything out :confused:

palmerc2

Jun 15, 2009, 04:05 PM

I've searched, and can't find anything about it...

I've heard that there are some apps, jailbroken or not, that will give a 3G voice controls much like the 3GS will have. This is the only feature interesting to me and will not be getting the new phone next week. Does anyone have any information on the name or the repository that an app like this would exist? Thanks in advance!

I am hoping there are 2 things that can possibly be fixed with jailbreaking.

1. is to enable voice control on the 2G & 3G. as someone said, its software, not hardware - it should be available across all iPhones & iTouches

2. is to enable video recording on 2G & 3G. they both have the same camera. the only difference in the 3Gs is it has a better camera.

my hopes being, the dev team can bypass certain "blocks" when it comes to recording and video, and enable it - simple. done :rolleyes:

jman240

Jun 15, 2009, 04:16 PM

The way i see it is as follows.

There are now 5 code branches for these devices, 3 iphone and 2 ipods. That means at least 5 distinct versions of the os since each device has slightly different hardware. Im assuming a lot of code is reused but it still has to be different hence the different restore files and the fact that you cant use one restore file on just any device.

Apple had limited time to produce this OS update as well as make it work on new hardware as per their release schedule and the WWDC keynote timing. The 3G[S] is most definitely new hardware and differs greatly inside from the older iphones. This says to me that this is their flagship phone and thus Apple put forth the most effort into completing the software for it first.

I'm going somewhere with this. There are now obvious software differences between the different iphone generations and while some are hardware dependent, most are not. I'm referring to the battery percentage meter and voice control mostly. I really can't imagine that these upgrades wont eventually be added to the older iphones and maybe even the ipod touchs in a future update. It seems very silly that something as small as a battery meter would be left out.

I have a feeling most of these software features will be back ported eventually. They just weren't ready for some reason or another for the 3.0 software / 3GS hardware release schedule. (Also, granted the battery meter already exists for those with previous JB phones though we don't know if it is buggy or what the deal is there). I say wait it out for a 3.1 update and we'll probably see these features added around the same time ATT gets off their butts and turns on MMS.

Revelation78

Jun 15, 2009, 05:30 PM

Apple had limited time to produce this OS update as well as make it work on new hardware as per their release schedule and the WWDC keynote timing.

So you're basically saying here that you have no idea how development cycles work....

I can guarantee you that the 3GS and 3.0 were already in development when 2.0 was released.

Just like they are already working on the 4th gen model to be released next year.

Icedog

Jun 15, 2009, 05:47 PM

What is this battery meter feature you speak of? I must have missed that.

The way i see it is as follows.

There are now 5 code branches for these devices, 3 iphone and 2 ipods. That means at least 5 distinct versions of the os since each device has slightly different hardware. Im assuming a lot of code is reused but it still has to be different hence the different restore files and the fact that you cant use one restore file on just any device.

Apple had limited time to produce this OS update as well as make it work on new hardware as per their release schedule and the WWDC keynote timing. The 3G[S] is most definitely new hardware and differs greatly inside from the older iphones. This says to me that this is their flagship phone and thus Apple put forth the most effort into completing the software for it first.

I'm going somewhere with this. There are now obvious software differences between the different iphone generations and while some are hardware dependent, most are not. I'm referring to the battery percentage meter and voice control mostly. I really can't imagine that these upgrades wont eventually be added to the older iphones and maybe even the ipod touchs in a future update. It seems very silly that something as small as a battery meter would be left out.

I have a feeling most of these software features will be back ported eventually. They just weren't ready for some reason or another for the 3.0 software / 3GS hardware release schedule. (Also, granted the battery meter already exists for those with previous JB phones though we don't know if it is buggy or what the deal is there). I say wait it out for a 3.1 update and we'll probably see these features added around the same time ATT gets off their butts and turns on MMS.

mavis

Jun 15, 2009, 05:54 PM

Ninja Dom

Jun 15, 2009, 06:03 PM

Yes there are now, or soon will be, five different hardware platforms that 3.0 can run off.

But it isn't in Apple's interests to allow the iPhone 2G all the features of the iPhone 3G - or the iPhone 3G all the features of the iPhone 3GS.

Why buy a 3GS if the 3G does EXACTLY the same thing but is far cheaper??

Come September, Apple will release a new iPod Touch again (64 Gb capacity as Apple now has solo 32Gb storage chips used in the 3GS and the iPod Touch can take two of these.) But believe me, they'll add a few features that the 2nd gen Touch can't use or have.

Maclver

Jun 15, 2009, 06:04 PM

[QUOTE=Why buy a 3GS if the 3G does EXACTLY the same thing but is far cheaper??[/QUOTE]

thats why apple does it right there!

ruinfx

Jun 15, 2009, 06:07 PM

mavis

Jun 15, 2009, 06:09 PM

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Don't you guys think it's possible that voice control + speech synthesis might be just a little bit hardware intensive? ;)

no

Right. Which is why so many phones support on-the-fly text-to-speech.

coolwater

Jun 15, 2009, 06:11 PM

What I want to know is if Voice Control does not include VoiceDial. AT&T is charging $4.99/mo for VoiceDial in iPhone package.

StingerT125

Jun 15, 2009, 06:14 PM

Come September, Apple will release a new iPod Touch again (64 Gb capacity as Apple now has solo 32Gb storage chips used in the 3GS and the iPod Touch can take two of these.) But believe me, they'll add a few features that the 2nd gen Touch can't use or have.

A camera with video capability would be a nice upgrade for the Touch.

AzWildcat

Jun 15, 2009, 06:31 PM

feature from ATT is only for those whose phones don't support it (thats what a rep told me....although most of us here know far more about phone plans then most reps do....kinda like asking a sales clerk a question about a camera 9 times out of ten he will talk through his head)

ruinfx

Jun 15, 2009, 06:45 PM

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Right. Which is why so many phones support on-the-fly text-to-speech.

voice control is a feature found on most smartphones, so no i dont think it requires fast hardware. the little ipod shuffle provides voiceover. all the iphone does is take the voice control and allows it to control voiceover. so no, i dont see any reason why the iphone 3g could have the voice control added to it other than to drive sales. while i understand why apple would want to do this, i think at least the voice dialing portion of voice control should be added to the iphone 3g for safety reasons.

iMacDragon

Jun 15, 2009, 06:45 PM

A camera with video capability would be a nice upgrade for the Touch.

Problem with adding a camera to touch is it would make new model unusable for some peoples jobs, where anything with a camera on is banned.

iMacDragon

Jun 15, 2009, 06:46 PM

voice control is a feature found on most smartphones, so no i dont think it requires fast hardware. the little ipod shuffle provides voiceover. all the iphone does is take the voice control and allows it to control voiceover. so no, i dont see any reason why the iphone 3g could have the voice control added to it other than to drive sales. while i understand why apple would want to do this, i think at least the voice dialing portion of voice control should be added to the iphone 3g for safety reasons.

I believe the shuffle/nano get the host system to pre record the sound samples, and the iphone will be generating them on the fly.

ruinfx

Jun 15, 2009, 06:49 PM

I believe the shuffle/nano get the host system to pre record the sound samples, and the iphone will be generating them on the fly.

i wasnt aware of that.

still, my old phone (the nokia e71) didnt have anywhere near the hardware specs of the 3G S has and it could still read my text messages back to me.

jamesarm97

Jun 15, 2009, 06:52 PM

the little ipod shuffle provides voiceover

I do believe that the ipod only does voiceover because iTunes takes each song and does the text-to-speech on the computer and tags the files with them. That is why they said that Windows ipod sounds different than the Mac ipod, because the computer is doing the text encoding.

Gathomblipoob

Jun 15, 2009, 06:53 PM

I am hoping there are 2 things that can possibly be fixed with jailbreaking.

2. is to enable video recording on 2G & 3G. they both have the same camera. the only difference in the 3Gs is it has a better camera. :

How can it be the same camera when the new one has more megapixels, auto-focus, auto white balance and auto exposure?

mavis

Jun 15, 2009, 07:00 PM

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voice control is a feature found on most smartphones, so no i dont think it requires fast hardware. the little ipod shuffle provides voiceover. all the iphone does is take the voice control and allows it to control voiceover. so no, i dont see any reason why the iphone 3g could have the voice control added to it other than to drive sales. while i understand why apple would want to do this, i think at least the voice dialing portion of voice control should be added to the iphone 3g for safety reasons.

I believe the shuffle/nano get the host system to pre record the sound samples, and the iphone will be generating them on the fly.

Exactly. I think people are mistaking the iPhone 3GS' Voice Control for simple, 'dumb' voice dialing. It's not only being able understand a handful of commands, it's also being able to synthesize speech. The 3GS can read web pages to you, emails, etc - on-the-fly text-to-speech.

Not to mention the RAM issue. Voice Control seems to be running at all times as a background process, hence the reason it can be instantly summoned from within any app by holding the home button, without having to end the app in use. Given that the iPhone 3G typically has 2-3MB of RAM free at any given time (mail, Safari, iPod, phone - all of these use up lots of memory) I seriously doubt the iPhone 3G could handle an additional background task like Voice Control. ;)

ruinfx

Jun 15, 2009, 07:08 PM

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Exactly. I think people are mistaking the iPhone 3GS' Voice Control for simple, 'dumb' voice dialing. It's not only being able understand a handful of commands, it's also being able to synthesize speech. The 3GS can read web pages to you, emails, etc - on-the-fly text-to-speech.

Not to mention the RAM issue. Voice Control seems to be running at all times as a background process, hence the reason it can be instantly summoned from within any app by holding the home button, without having to end the app in use. Given that the iPhone 3G typically has 2-3MB of RAM free at any given time (mail, Safari, iPod, phone - all of these use up lots of memory) I seriously doubt the iPhone 3G could handle an additional background task like Voice Control. ;)

like i mentioned, my old nokia e71 does on-the-fly text-to-speech. it will read your text messages to you.

IronLogik

Jun 15, 2009, 07:16 PM

like i mentioned, my old nokia e71 does on-the-fly text-to-speech. it will read your text messages to you.

You're missing the point. It's "Voice to Command" you're looking at versus
"Text to Speech."

Voice Control takes voice input from you, analyses it and turns it into a command. It actually has to process your voice and determine what is being said.

Text to speech is different. You have text, like me typing here, and you then render a voice to that.

Totally different mate. One controls the phone, the other simply reads things aloud.

Edit; and yes i realize the VoiceKit or whatever it is, can also render text to speech. But the point is the Voice Control APP is doing a lot more mathematical processing than one would initially think. Thus, a 3G[s] only feature. The hardware required to do it is probably greater. Nevermind the constantly running in the background nature of it, and 128mb of ram already being tight on the 3G and 2G phones. Probably not possible to do it on the older models.

mavis

Jun 15, 2009, 07:17 PM

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like i mentioned, my old nokia e71 does on-the-fly text-to-speech. it will read your text messages to you.Ok, that's great. The iPhone 3G doesn't do that, and never has.

ruinfx

Jun 15, 2009, 07:38 PM

You're missing the point. It's "Voice to Command" you're looking at versus
"Text to Speech."

Voice Control takes voice input from you, analyses it and turns it into a command. It actually has to process your voice and determine what is being said.

Text to speech is different. You have text, like me typing here, and you then render a voice to that.

Totally different mate. One controls the phone, the other simply reads things aloud.

Edit; and yes i realize the VoiceKit or whatever it is, can also render text to speech. But the point is the Voice Control APP is doing a lot more mathematical processing than one would initially think. Thus, a 3G[s] only feature. The hardware required to do it is probably greater. Nevermind the constantly running in the background nature of it, and 128mb of ram already being tight on the 3G and 2G phones. Probably not possible to do it on the older models.

my point is that voice control is available on other phones with inferior hardware and text-to-speech is available on phones with inferior hardware. i just cant believe that marrying the 2 together requires an omap3 processor. phones have been doing voice control for years now (whether its for voice dialing or launching apps with voice commands).

IronLogik

Jun 15, 2009, 07:48 PM

my point is that voice control is available on other phones with inferior hardware and text-to-speech is available on phones with inferior hardware. i just cant believe that marrying the 2 together requires an omap3 processor. phones have been doing voice control for years now (whether its for voice dialing or launching apps with voice commands).

The thing is those applications aren't quite like Voice Control on the iPhone. It's a standalone app that interfaces with (virtually) any application. At least my guess is it will in the next update allow developers to use it too. That's not something you'll find in any phone.

It's always running. It's only running when you invoke it on other phones.

mavis

Jun 15, 2009, 08:37 PM

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my point is that voice control is available on other phones with inferior hardware and text-to-speech is available on phones with inferior hardware. i just cant believe that marrying the 2 together requires an omap3 processor. phones have been doing voice control for years now (whether its for voice dialing or launching apps with voice commands).

The thing is those applications aren't quite like Voice Control on the iPhone. It's a standalone app that interfaces with (virtually) any application. At least my guess is it will in the next update allow developers to use it too. That's not something you'll find in any phone.

It's always running. It's only running when you invoke it on other phones.

Exactly. Can you imagine the iPhone 3G with yet another 'always running' app? Yikes!!

ruinfx

Jun 15, 2009, 09:18 PM

why is it always running? shouldnt it just run when you invoke it with the home button?

Revelation78

Jun 15, 2009, 09:40 PM

my point is that voice control is available on other phones with inferior hardware and text-to-speech is available on phones with inferior hardware. i just cant believe that marrying the 2 together requires an omap3 processor. phones have been doing voice control for years now (whether its for voice dialing or launching apps with voice commands).

WE GET YOUR POINT!!!!!!!!

Show me one phone where you can give it ANY command and it will do what you say. Point to ONE PHONE that when you tell it to play a specific song in an album it will play it right away and get it right! Point to one phone that you can launch apps with your voice.

I've yet to see one, point it out.

mavis

Jun 15, 2009, 09:45 PM

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why is it always running? shouldnt it just run when you invoke it with the home button?

Well I guess we'll have to see how it's implemented ... From the video walkthrough it appears to launch instantly, without interrupting whatever app is currently in use, which to me would seem to indicate that it's always running. And if it is always running as a background process, that would explain why the current iPhone (with its pathetically small amount of RAM) ant handle it. But we'll find out soon enough, I'm sure. :)

IronLogik

Jun 15, 2009, 09:47 PM

WE GET YOUR POINT!!!!!!!!

Show me one phone where you can give it ANY command and it will do what you say. Point to ONE PHONE that when you tell it to play a specific song in an album it will play it right away and get it right! Point to one phone that you can launch apps with your voice.

I've yet to see one, point it out.

I wouldn't go that crazy on him mate.

As for why it's running in the background. It doesn't necessarily have to. but probably makes the process a bit faster. It's probably a lot more to do with processing power. There's going to be more overhead than you might expect. My guess is it's a combination of processing power and RAM issues that prevent it from being available on older models. Be thankful that a lot of the new features are available on older phones. No other company has made this sort of effort to keep old models in the loop 2 years after it was released.

iMacDragon

Jun 16, 2009, 02:43 AM

No other company has made this sort of effort to keep old models in the loop 2 years after it was released.

Quite true on that, till recent times at least, my old nokia n73 is still stuck on its ancient first attempt at a web browser, no technical reason they couldn't have updated it and the OS to a newer version, other than cost of testing and wanting to sell you a newer model.

ViViDboarder

Jun 17, 2009, 11:35 PM

Well, I've had voice controlled phones in the past on MUCH slower phones on than the iPhone. LG Fusic is one and I've seen it on others.

It had no training and worked well. There is no reason it couldn't be on the iPhone as well.

Tethering has been turned on for us AT&T customers via a webpage. Only a matter of time for VC.

Numbski

Jun 22, 2009, 07:02 AM

Okay, well now that we've all had it for a few days, what's the word? I know there's a plist edit hack to enable video recording...any word on voice control? I'll hunt down the video editing hack and post it in-thread so I'm contributing at least. ;)

Enable Video Recording on 2G/3G?
SSH into your iphone
Go to /System/Library/CoreServices/Springboard.app/
Download the file M68AP.plist
Open the file using a text editor or a plist editor
Add a Boolean value under the capabilities dictionary
Boolean Key = video-camera / Boolean Value = true
Save and upload the file to the same directory that it was originally in
Go onto the iPhone and respring Done!

ViViDboarder

Jun 23, 2009, 11:16 AM

Okay, well now that we've all had it for a few days, what's the word? I know there's a plist edit hack to enable video recording...any word on voice control? I'll hunt down the video editing hack and post it in-thread so I'm contributing at least. ;)

Someone posted that that edit also breaks the camera... I don't know though. I'm happy with Cycorder.

Numbski

Jun 23, 2009, 12:46 PM

Same here in truth. I do want my voice control though dangit! :)

Can't we get a plist dump from a 3GS, a 3G, and a 2G and just diff them all to compare the feature edits? I'm sure we could nail this down pretty quick.

Tomar

Jul 1, 2009, 07:16 AM

So are there any alternatives recommended by 3G users? At a bare minimum, I would like voice dialing capabilities.

dontwalkhand

Jul 5, 2009, 11:21 AM

ViViDboarder

Jul 6, 2009, 12:26 PM

T-Mobile Wing allowed me to open any application, play albums, and call contacts much like the iPhone 3GS. Do some research before making comments, please. It also responded to "natural" commands like the iPhone 3GS.

That being said, the T-Mobile Wing was still a crappy Windows Mobile phone.

There we go. We know that the phone has the power to do this, we just need to make it work.

illus

Jul 10, 2009, 08:30 AM

This 3GS thing is just a marketing game. There is nothing new on the table about iphone. They 've just upgraded the hardware and put some new features (cam, vcontrol, auto zoom/expo etc). They limited this new features for other generation iphone models and tried to make new 3GS more unique and different than the old one. also, they force you to buy/want this new 3GS. otherwise why would ppl get an "just hw upgraded and nothing new" iphone? They just lock this via sw or hw and want u to get/upgrade new iphones. thats the point..

i know that 3GS processor and other hw is quite better than old 3G but that doesnt mean ths features cant run on the old one. It will work, but may be slower..

mkblade

Jul 17, 2009, 12:27 PM

ViViDboarder

Jul 17, 2009, 06:57 PM

addings values such as: gas-gauge-battery, video-camera, voice-control, accessibility and setting the key to true to the M68AP.plist will enable these features within the Settings....

gas-gauge-battery= enabling battery percentage option in Settings>General>Usage

video-camera= will enable the switch of choosing from camera-recorder in the lower-right side of camera app (though...u wont be able 2 use "camera app" anymore

voice-control= enable the Voice Control setting interface in Settings>General>International>Voice Control

accessibility= again, will enable Accessibility setting interface in Settings>General>Accessibility

=====any1 know how to hex-edit "files" such as voiced,voiceover,etc?

What does hex-editing those files have to do with it? I know how to use a Hex-editor. I enabled voice-control but I just have an empty settings window for it.

If those are the settings files that need to be made to run then let me know where to get them. Are they only on the 3Gs? Or are they on the 3G firmware too but just blocked on a software level?

DELLsFan

Jul 17, 2009, 07:01 PM

So are there any alternatives recommended by 3G users? At a bare minimum, I would like voice dialing capabilities.

Good Luck ... even the Melodis Dialer requires physical contact with the phone. I'm very disappointed Apple didn't include Voice Dialing into the iPhones. It's a simple feature nearly every OTHER phone has ... but not the iPhone. :mad: