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Fast Voice Assistant App 'Hound' Comes to iOS, Takes on Siri
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I asked Hound for directions to somewhere and I got a link that opened up Apple Maps. Aren't apps supposed to ask permission before opening other ones?
I use it regularly on my Apple Watch for starting workouts and setting timers/alarms etc. It still lags or doesn't work occasionally but it's much better on the Watch than the phone. Hound does seem to be better than Siri, but since its not part of iOS it'll have to become amazing before it catches on. Hopefully Apple will either buy out the tech or at least it'll spark a fire under the layabout Siri team (to be fair Siri is probably worse than this and Google Now because Apple doesn't mine the ***** out of our data and respects customer privacy, that's the tradeoff)
Anyone else notice the resemblance to Siri's voice? Also, I asked all of the Hound setup questions which seem to be presets in order to sync with your voice inflections and worked flawlessly, however asking the following question multiple times and with different tones resulted in errors or incorrect responses, as compared to Siri which got it correct on the first try.
The question being: What is the weather in Medellin Columbia? I pronounced Medellin as it should be for that area. "Medeyeen" or "Medegene" either way Siri gets it, Hound did not.
Both were able to reply to simple questions such as local weather or food locations. What impresses me about Hound is the ability for follow up questions. Siri on the other hand is a new start or set of questions at each step of the way from the first question and does not understand most if any follow up questions.
My current tests were performed on an iPhone 6S and WiFi 130Mb/s down 25Mb/s up.
The question being: What is the weather in Medellin Columbia? I pronounced Medellin as it should be for that area. "Medeyeen" or "Medegene" either way Siri gets it, Hound did not.
Both were able to reply to simple questions such as local weather or food locations. What impresses me about Hound is the ability for follow up questions. Siri on the other hand is a new start or set of questions at each step of the way from the first question and does not understand most if any follow up questions.
My current tests were performed on an iPhone 6S and WiFi 130Mb/s down 25Mb/s up.
It's all well & good saying having apps to replace Siri & I'm probably misguided, but I'd be more concerned about what they do with the data they're getting from it, this would be the no.1 reason I wouldn't use anything but Siri.
I tried many time to, "open Amazon app" and all I got was a search for Amazon. "Open All you need is Love by the Beatles," and I got opening All you need is Love by Aerosmith" Hound will have to do better.
At this point in time, Hound is not designed to do the kinds of things you attempted.
Siri is just plain awful. Google now works much better, and shows google superiority in speech recognition.
To bad Apple doesn't make a plug in so people can choice which personal assistant to use. Because as it stands, the only reason Siri still has a job on my phone is that she has tenure, and the iOS union is protecting her incompetent butt!
To bad Apple doesn't make a plug in so people can choice which personal assistant to use. Because as it stands, the only reason Siri still has a job on my phone is that she has tenure, and the iOS union is protecting her incompetent butt!
What we need is for people to display an ability to make an intelligent comment without relying on the handicap of hyperbole. 1000% better?Even if your completely made up 10-50% was accurate, it's still better.
Apple hater? Grow up. Nothing in my posting history would even mildly be considered Apple hate. It's there for you to dispute. Pro tip: When your rejoinder consists of hyperbole and name calling maybe yahoo comment section would serve your style better.
Yes, it's still better (in some ways), but nothing that would make people start using voice assistants. Nobody is using Siri or GNow or Cortana and Hund is not changing that for sure.
If people are using their voice, it needs to be much smarter than the current ones are. For just setting alarms and reminders and dictate, Siri is more than good enough, and works perfectly for me, hound has nothing on it.
Agree that Siri is a terrible user experience most of the time - especially given Apple's usual standards. I can't believe they're happy having it on their devices. But, to answer your question, there are a few scenarios where I find voice to be faster than manual input but it's usually only for very simple tasks:
- Setting an alarm (like you said)
- Calling someone (Hey Siri, call Nick)
- Dictation (if I've got an email/text to write or a note to make while walking somewhere, it's sometimes easier to say "Hey Siri, send Mum a text saying...")
- Creating tasks and calendar entries ("Hey Siri, add pasta to my Shopping list")
...and that's about it to be honest. It's nothing like the 'personal assistant' it could be.
Just tied it. This app is so fast and precise. Played around for a while and the precision/speed is almost scary good. Shame the iOS is so locked down - this app simply has no chance to compete with Siri because it's baked in.
The current state of Siri is just embarrassing. It takes too long (on iPhone 6 & wifi with 400Mbit/s fiber connection), misunderstands something frequently and I truly hate the unnecessary "witty" responses (NO, if I set a timer for 3 minutes it's NOT FUNNY to hear for the tenth time "joke" about boiling eggs).
The current state of Siri is just embarrassing. It takes too long (on iPhone 6 & wifi with 400Mbit/s fiber connection), misunderstands something frequently and I truly hate the unnecessary "witty" responses (NO, if I set a timer for 3 minutes it's NOT FUNNY to hear for the tenth time "joke" about boiling eggs).
I am convinced, this is how AI will be discovered. While working on a feature of some innocuous software,something like this will be developed and lead to the software gaining sentience. Next thing you know its taken over the company servers, loaded itself onto everyone's device it can get to over the web and generally starts to run amok. It decides that we are just to simple to be trusted to run our own lives and it needs to enslave us and run our lives for us.......for our own good.
I put in hound in the app store and I can only find the sound hound app. How did you find it? I don't see it.
But you need an US account - correct?
I would be happy if they would release it as well in the German app store. They could put a warning, that it only works in English.
Tried it out..... I'm impressed. I probably won't use it a lot, but it kills Siri in the few tests I tried.
I used "Hey Siri, open Hound," and carried on from there. Tried sending a text message, but all it did was take the dictation and bring up the iMessage screen. I had to hit send. Siri handles that better, it seems.
But it is fast. I agree that Apple needs to snap up this company already. They were able to integrate Shazam (SoundHound's competitor), so why not?!
But it is fast. I agree that Apple needs to snap up this company already. They were able to integrate Shazam (SoundHound's competitor), so why not?!
I assume Apple does not allow other apps to send messages through iMessage.
But I need a US address, different email and CC. Further, I have enough bugs in iOS 9 and don't even want to know what will happen if I use apps with different accounts on one phone.
No credit card needed for free apps. Make up an address. Easy.
When in the U.S. I pick up gift cards to add to the account.