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Voice Control on 3G?

D

ddrum1458

macrumors member
Original poster
Is there any reason why the voice control software cannot work on the 3G?
Do you think that it would be hacked by a member of the hacking community and distributed through jailbroken 3G's?
 
I'd have thought so.

It really annoys me that they haven't allowed it on the 3G because there is no technical reason why it couldn't run it.
 
So it's apple telling us we can't have it because we're already in a 18/24 month contract and therefore don't deserve it?
 
I'm glad to hear you are both experienced, expert programmers. Perhaps you can contribute over in the iPhone Programming section?

Or do you really not know what you are talking about? Voice recognition, especially the sort of open-ended free system Apple have implemented on the GS requires lots of CPU power, specialist DSP processing (either in hardware on even more CPU) and potentially quite a bit of RAM. The GS has a significantly more powerful CPU, more RAM and the CPU has additional specialist processing hardware. All of this points towards the plain old G quite possibly not being able to run the voice control system well enough.

Happy?
 
so i can run the ipod and load a heavy-load webpage and that would be less intensive than the voice control for x amount of time, it could even be programmed to stop the phone and mail process for this small amount of time to run quicker, god i hate these look at my knowledge, bow down to me types
 
ddrum1458 said:
so i can run the ipod and load a heavy-load webpage and that would be less intensive than the voice control for x amount of time, it could even be programmed to stop the phone and mail process for this small amount of time to run quicker, god i hate these look at my knowledge, bow down to me types
Click to expand...

That's just not very Apple-like is it? They either release the full experience or not at all. So for the 3G it's not at all. Oh, and I hate all these, "I have totally unrealistic expectations which aren't being met so Apple are out to get me and are unfairly and intentionally screwing us over" types.
 
how is it unrealistic to want something that most phones had built in when the first gen iphone was launched
 
robbieduncan said:
I'm glad to hear you are both experienced, expert programmers. Perhaps you can contribute over in the iPhone Programming section?

Or do you really not know what you are talking about? Voice recognition, especially the sort of open-ended free system Apple have implemented on the GS requires lots of CPU power, specialist DSP processing (either in hardware on even more CPU) and potentially quite a bit of RAM. The GS has a significantly more powerful CPU, more RAM and the CPU has additional specialist processing hardware. All of this points towards the plain old G quite possibly not being able to run the voice control system well enough.

Happy?
Click to expand...

My LG Chocolate back in 2007 could do voice control. A freaking Motorola Razr can do voice control. Perhaps they couldn't do the iPod and searching functions using voice control (though technically that's just an expanded vocabulary and doesn't really require any extra DSP techniques). I'd be content with just getting the voice dialing on the older phones, I couldn't really care less about controlling the iPod and other stuff through voice control.
 
I think the voice control is gimicky I'd be surprised if people use it on a large scale when its implemented on the 3GS. You're gonna be walking down the sidewalk talking to your iphone instead of just using the touch controls to find out what song is playing? Like on other phones, it's sometimes useful for dialing numbers but that's about it. I dread a subway ride with a bunch of idiots giving stupid commands to their iphones.

I think the rest of the features on the 3GS are great, and if I didn't already own an iphone I'd be in line for one.
 
teiresias said:
My LG Chocolate back in 2007 could do voice control. A freaking Motorola Razr can do voice control. Perhaps they couldn't do the iPod and searching functions using voice control (though technically that's just an expanded vocabulary and doesn't really require any extra DSP techniques). I'd be content with just getting the voice dialing on the older phones, I couldn't really care less about controlling the iPod and other stuff through voice control.
Click to expand...

Congrats, maybe I should start listing featurs of the iPhone that the RAZR can't do and we compare? Maybe we can list features of my parents wood burning oven vs my university dorm's radiator? How about we compare the Model T with the the Focus hybrid and list things the Model T had that the Focus doesn't?
 
why would you want to? Ive had voice control on my last few phones and once the novelty wore off after a day i never used it again. One 3GS feature i could not care less about.
 
ddrum1458 said:
how is it unrealistic to want something that most phones had built in when the first gen iphone was launched
Click to expand...

The only other phones I've had that do voice control basically allow you to record a tag that you then say back to activate that function. The voice control on the 3GS is much more than that because it understands what you say without having to record specific tags, so it recognizes artists, albums, etc, etc. This is a much more processor intensive task than simple record / recognize type voice control
 
robbieduncan said:
Show me another phone where you can say "Play <insert name of band>" and it'll start playing that from your built-in library...
Click to expand...

This is nothing new to smartphones.

Windows Mobile has had this (and more) for years with its optional Voice Command, which also works over BT:

  • Dialing by number or name etc. Spoken caller id.
  • Playing music by name, group, type.
  • Readback of which song or track.
  • Look up calendar schedule, with spoken readout.
  • Read incoming texts to you.
  • Control of ringer and airplane mode.
  • Request spoken status of battery, etc.
  • Launch applications.

A list of typical WM voice commands is here.

Most importantly, you can add MS Voice Command to almost any WM5+ phone. You don't have to buy a new one.

Some of those WM5 phones are pretty slow, compared to even the first iPhone.
 
kdarling said:
This is nothing new to smartphones.

Windows Mobile has had this (and more) for years with its optional Voice Command, which also works over BT:

  • Dialing by number or name etc. Spoken caller id.
  • Playing music by name, group, type.
  • Readback of which song or track.
  • Look up calendar schedule, with spoken readout.
  • Read incoming texts to you.
  • Control of ringer and airplane mode.
  • Request spoken status of battery, etc.
  • Launch applications.

A list of typical WM voice commands is here.

Most importantly, you can add MS Voice Command to almost any WM5+ phone. You don't have to buy a new one.

Some of those WM5 phones are pretty slow, compared to even the first iPhone.
Click to expand...

very well done sir, you beat me to it.

MS Voice Command ran very well on 200 MHz Windows Movile devices such as the HTC Tytn and Arthemis about 4/5 years ago and seems to do everything that Apples offering is said to do. I'm sure the 600 MHz 3G processor could handle it.

Most likely they wanted to hold some features back to make more people upgrade. I mean, I can't see any reason why the original iPhone can't do MMS? MMS is a 2.5G service, there's no need for 3G.
 
Whether it is possible or not. Apple still needs to differentiate from the two devices. They can't just implement every feature cut down and stripped. I could go on explaining different reasons against this.
 
anthdci said:
why would you want to? Ive had voice control on my last few phones and once the novelty wore off after a day i never used it again. One 3GS feature i could not care less about.
Click to expand...

in the UK (and im guessing some US states) you cannot handle your phone whilst driving and although technically it still is, its much easier to hide ie. just holding the home button. So it is now much more widely used in the UK, you should also be able to enable an option to have a loudspeaker option to show on the incoming call screen
 
All my 'phones over the last 7-8 years have had voice control. I set it up on the first one, realised it was nothing but a gimmick and have not bothered since. 😀
 
I have a question with this voice control function. What if, the iPhone is selling in a non-english speaking country, it doesn't support non-english language right? you can't say "call _________" with the blank in a non-english name or "play____________" with the blank with a non-english song right?
 
shdwkillr said:
I have a question with this voice control function. What if, the iPhone is selling in a non-english speaking country, it doesn't support non-english language right? you can't say "call _________" with the blank in a non-english name or "play____________" with the blank with a non-english song right?
Click to expand...

List of http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3g-s/voice-control.html command languages here at Apple.

Other voice control systems let you customize them, so any language (even made up) would work. Wonder if Apple allows the same.

Edit: Oh. You're just wondering about contact and song names, not commands. It's just going to do its best to recognize those on the fly. Might have to warp your pronunciation at times.
 
kdarling said:
List of
Edit: Oh. You're just wondering about contact and song names, not commands. It's just going to do its best to recognize those on the fly. Might have to warp your pronunciation at times.
Click to expand...

Does that means it will still try it's best to recognize it but not totally not recognizing those non-english contacts and songs?
 
John T said:
All my 'phones over the last 7-8 years have had voice control. I set it up on the first one, realized it was nothing but a gimmick and have not bothered since. 😀
Click to expand...

No truer words have been spoken. I tried it once on my Winblows phone and that was the last time I had any interest. So many errors and so much easier to push a button or two. And I am sure the iPhone will have the same issues. 🙁
 
shdwkillr said:
Does that means it will still try it's best to recognize it but not totally not recognizing those non-english contacts and songs?
Click to expand...

While it has a list of commands to match against, it couldn't have a list of every person's name or song on the planet.

So it'll do its best to match names, using rules it understands. Perhaps those change by the language setting. So, for example, it could know that a "sha" sound in Spanish could match against "Xa". Or "ya" in German matches "Ja". And so forth. Don't know yet.

But you might have to speak something differently for it to recognize it. For some odd personal names, you might have to speak them more or less phonetically. That's assuming it won't let you do extra training, like some other systems. If it does, then you can train it for special cases.
 
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