Fast Voice Assistant App 'Hound' Comes to iOS, Takes on Siri

[coolfactor]

If it's really that good, Apple should buy it up before anyone else can.

No kidding! If Hound is this good, Apple NEEDS this tech! Siri is not nearly fast enough (in my usage on a fast WiFi connection) to use on a transparent basis.
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It's not hard at all to beat something that's a half-measure effort from Apple that works maybe one time out of fifty. For something that's supposed to be a flagship feature of iOS, it's probably the most maddening because it's downright terrible in functionality, and cannot work without a connection.

I think (I hope!) we'll see much better on-device support for Siri in the coming years. With Macs gaining native Siri support in the next OS X release, I expect a lot more deep-device integration. We have the A-chip, we have the M-chip... now for the V-chip, an always-on dedicated voice processor.

 

[swajames]

Installed yesterday and it's super impressive. The voice recognition is excellent, the response time is freakishly quick and the ability to use complex queries and then follow up with queries that are interpreted in context is really very clever.

Early days but this app is light years ahead of
Siri.

 

[RowellE]

My issue with Siri is that she babbles too much. I just want her to do what I tell her

Women... amirite?!

I wonder if this can do dictation in large volumes. I transcribe interviews and cheat using dictation. I've been using Dragon and the dedicated iPhone feature. But with this being more accurate, I'm hoping that they have that as a feature.

 

[coffeemadmanUK]

Damn. Not available in the UK at the moment.

 

[ohio.emt]

The big question is it fast because the hound is better or Siri servers have more traffic?

 

[rp2011]

The big question is it fast because the hound is better or Siri servers have more traffic?

I read that it goes about it differently than Siri or Google now. I think it said that instead of translation first, like Siri, it gets context or something like that first before translating it. Anyway, it goes about getting the results in a different way.

 

[2010mini]

Apple..... BUY THIS COMPANY NOW!

 

[kdarling]

This is when being able to replace a default app with an app of your choice, could be really useful.

 

[samcraig]

This is when being able to replace a default app with an app of your choice, could be really useful.

I do think that one of the biggest reasons I use Android on my personal device is because I can choose my default apps. Extremely useful.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

I think I may use Siri once a month to set an alarm.

Other than that, is anything faster using voice?

Most of the time I've tried to use it, it either hears me wrong or spins for 10 seconds and does nothing.

I can't believe Apple is still going with something so frustrating and clunky to use.

You must have some unreliable internet connection. All the responses I get is almost instantaneous after upgrading to iOS 9, never taking longer than a second. I get about 90% accuracy. I use it daily to:

-see the weather
-check my calendar in the morning
-text message while I'm walking or jogging
-music controls
-start timers
-open apps
-convert measurement units
-get map directions
-get currency conversions
-call/facetime people
-set reminders
-start podcasts
-use "hey siri" to ask for the time in the middle of the night when I can't see where my phone is

They are usually much faster with much less hassle compared to manually tapping the phone.

 

[StevenPG]

"Hey Siri" please buy this company. If that video was a real live video that was amazing. The questions they asked were very complicated. Siri would have told a joke instead of giving a decent answer.

 

[jonnysods]

Buy them apple, please!!!

 

[dweezle3]

I do think that one of the biggest reasons I use Android on my personal device is because I can choose my default apps. Extremely useful.

Best part of jailbreaking, for me. I’ve already assigned Hound to open when I press and hold the home button rather than Siri. It's been a great improvement so far!

 

[JimmyHook]

They will. At which point Tim will slap on some patents, (despite prior art), and subsequently claim that they invented it.

You have zero clue what the term "prior art" actually means. If the algorithm is new and novel, it can be patented and protected

 

[BobVB]

I think I may use Siri once a month to set an alarm.

Other than that, is anything faster using voice?

Most of the time I've tried to use it, it either hears me wrong or spins for 10 seconds and does nothing.

I can't believe Apple is still going with something so frustrating and clunky to use.

I know of people who have problems with Siri, but I’m not one. I particularly use it with my Watch. I can be in a noisy bar and whisper a text, reminder, event set up to the watch and it gets it no matter how noisy the room is.

And I agree with everyone else - there should be a nice guy from the Genius Bar with a check at their place right now cheerfully asking “Now how many zeros do you want on this?” sometime today. Very impressive.

 

[hortod1]

I think I may use Siri once a month to set an alarm.

Other than that, is anything faster using voice?

Most of the time I've tried to use it, it either hears me wrong or spins for 10 seconds and does nothing.

I can't believe Apple is still going with something so frustrating and clunky to use.

And Siri sucks at that. Half the time all she replies is, "ok, it's set". With no read back confirmation of the time I requested I have to manually check that she heard me correctly and set the correct time, forcing me to open the phone anyway, in which case I might as well just do it manually.

 

[NT1440]

Siri has had a semi-secret team set up in Boston for two years now that we haven't seen the results of. I don't think Apple "needs" to acquire this company. What they "need" to do is finally pump out some of the stuff they've been dumping R&D into.

 

[macaximx]

Too bad it's not available in Canada.

It works in Canada. Surprisingly fast too.

 

[Blakjack]

I don't know what the secret is but this app is amazing.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I just installed it and tested it several times. It is as fast as shown in the video. And from my early testing, it does a much better job of voice recognition than Siri often does.

 

[Deasnutz]

Downloaded, I can always disable Siri if I want.

 

[jimbobb24]

Siri is nice but for me is now worse in iOS 9 because she is always listening at wrong time without the beep to signal go. Old habits die hard I guess.

Updates like this are amazing. We are going To brute force speech in the next 10 years. I love it.

 

[RiddlaBronc]

Siri has been worthless to me. Most of the time it messes up a word and I get the "sorry i couldnt find blah,blah, blah". Very frustrating to use.

Yeah, you are talking to it wrong responses incoming


Dont get me started on the apple watch either
[doublepost=1456948431][/doublepost]Holy s***! Just tried the app and it blows siri out of the water. It got what i asked on the first try and it was blazing fast! Siri couldnt even understand what i was asking after 5 attemtps.

 

[Swampbaby985]

I only use Siri once a month...if that. I find "her" to be useless for the most part. Takes forever for her to respond to my requests, random connection issues. Just tried this app out and...WOW this is the version of Siri that should have launched on the iPhone 4S!

 

[Night Spring]

Am I the only one who can't get this to work? I installed it on my iPad, and it keeps saying the microphone isn't picking up my voice. Haven't tried it on my iPhone yet, but it's disappointing if it only works on iPhones.