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Google Bringing Voice Search To iPhone

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Google will be bringing a voice-enabled search application to the iPhone, which the New York Times reports may be available sometime today.

Users [...] can place the phone to their ear and ask virtually any question, like “Where’s the nearest Starbucks?” or “How tall is Mount Everest?” The sound is converted to a digital file and sent to Google’s servers, which try to determine the words spoken and pass them along to the Google search engine.
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The application uses the iPhone's on-board sensors to detect when the phone has been raised to the user's ear so it can go into "listen" mode.

The free application is making its first appearance on the iPhone, though versions for other phones are said to be in the pipeline.

Article Link: Google Brining Voice Search To iPhone
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2008/11/14/google-brining-voice-search-to-iphone/
Sounds pretty hot. I just hope the delay between the server translating the speech file,
and displaying the results, isn't large, otherwise it won't be as useful as I'd like it to be.

R-Fly
 
longofest said:
I love how everyone's question is always Where's the nearest starbucks.
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And there are many other iPhone applications that can do that and then map it for you. The success of this will depend on the quality of the Google interpreter and the speed. I have yet to have much success with Midomi or Shazam, so I'm not getting my hopes up.

Now if there was an iPhone app that let me speak the name of one of my contacts and then dial it automatically, that would be useful. :)
 
Certainly hope the interpreter works well. Otherwise, it will just be like when you call an 800 number and the automated operator says "please answer 'yes' or 'no'" you scream no and it takes it as a yes.
 
And assuming that google can distinguish accents. The DS Braintraining game is rather annoying when it doesn't recognise that you said "paper" just because you didn't say it Americanly.

jayducharme said:
And there are many other iPhone applications that can do that and then map it for you. The success of this will depend on the quality of the Google interpreter and the speed. I have yet to have much success with Midomi or Shazam, so I'm not getting my hopes up.

Now if there was an iPhone app that let me speak the name of one of my contacts and then dial it automatically, that would be useful. :)
Click to expand...

There are a few... Just search for "voice dial" or similar. "Say Who - Dialer" is a free one that pops up in a search. Haven't tried any of them, but they do exist.
 
DukeofAnkh said:
And assuming that google can distinguish accents. The DS Braintraining game is rather annoying when it doesn't recognise that you said "paper" just because you didn't say it Americanly.
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Yeah, I AM American and I couldn't get Brain Age to work right. It thought I was a numbskull because it could never understand me when I said the names of colors on one of its games. "Red. Yellow. Red. Blue. Blue. BLUE. BLUE #@%@$%@#%!!!!!!!!! *throw DS*"
 
Awesome! Hope it works well but I'm pretty sure it will. iPhone gets better and better.

Now if only Apple can start to deliver on their promises (Push September, No more Safari crashes (Version 2.1?),etc then the iPhone will be a lot more like able :):rolleyes:
 
Say what?

razorianfly said:
Sounds pretty hot. I just hope the delay between the server translating the speech file,
and displaying the results, isn't large, otherwise it won't be as useful as I'd like it to be.

R-Fly
Click to expand...

I hope it isn't blue or it won't be as green as I'd like it to be....... ;)

Truly bizarre.
 
jayducharme said:
And there are many other iPhone applications that can do that and then map it for you. The success of this will depend on the quality of the Google interpreter and the speed. I have yet to have much success with Midomi or Shazam, so I'm not getting my hopes up.

Now if there was an iPhone app that let me speak the name of one of my contacts and then dial it automatically, that would be useful. :)
Click to expand...

I can get shazam to work in a noisy restaurant. Truly one of the most magical things I've seen EVER.
 
vtmikevt said:
"Say who" dialer. works well.
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I agree. Say Who has been virtually flawless for me. My only complaint might be that it is a bit slow to load.

as for Shazam, I'm shocked anyone has troubles with it, as it has worked for me in many noisy environments such as my car with everyone else talking!
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

What would be better is if Google told you the answer instead of just providing search results.

I want to ask where the nearest Starbuck is and it tell me the street address and directions.
 
DipDog3 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

What would be better is if Google told you the answer instead of just providing search results.

I want to ask where the nearest Starbuck is and it tell me the street address and directions.
Click to expand...

Agreed. As it is, I'm not sure I see the point, other than being too lazy to type "starbucks" with your finger.
 
DipDog3 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

What would be better is if Google told you the answer instead of just providing search results.

I want to ask where the nearest Starbuck is and it tell me the street address and directions.
Click to expand...

Why wouldn't just input it into the google maps app instead? (which I bet is what they are going to do.)
 
Is it just me or is it kinda funny that Google releases these Apps for the iPhone yet not for their own Android..

Google Earth - available for the iPhone but not android

Google Mobile App - available for the iPhone but not android

I figured developing for a competitor platform would be low on the priority and developing on your own would be much more important.. hmm guess not.
 
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