Voice Control on 3G?

[superxero3]

does anybody even find the voice control useless? the only time i could see it being cool was if you were across the room you could ask "what time is it?" "What song is this?" "who just called?". But you can't even do that, you have to be close enough to your phone to press and hold the home button down. If you're close enough to your phone to touch it, why would you want voice controls? (this is not meant to be sarcastic, i actually want an answer to this question).

 

[JonHimself]

does anybody even find the voice control useless? the only time i could see it being cool was if you were across the room you could ask "what time is it?" "What song is this?" "who just called?". But you can't even do that, you have to be close enough to your phone to press and hold the home button down. If you're close enough to your phone to touch it, why would you want voice controls? (this is not meant to be sarcastic, i actually want an answer to this question).

I have the 3G and won't be upgrading (well, I don't intend to.. I'm sure I'll come up with an excuse to get one eventually) BUT... I can see this being useful when driving. Right now (in Ontario/Canada too maybe?) we don't have a hands-free law but it's coming. When it does I was looking at getting a touch-screen car deck that can control my iPod/iPhone (apparently using my hands to control my car-deck is safer than controlling my phone, but that's another argument).

With voice-control all I'd have to do press the home button and I could control my phone/music/etc?. That's a potential use for the voice controls. In terms of day-to-day use, I likely wouldn't it use it because at work I'm not going to speak to my phone (I understand at work I speak to customers via my work phone but that's different than saying "Play Kill 'Em All" out loud). At home I'd likely use my computer for music and if my phone was being used it'd likely be hooked up to a stereo and I'd have to go over to it to activate the voice over... having said that, I bet there are a lot of situations where it's easier to hold home and say "Play playlist newest additions" than to open the ipod, select the playlist button, scroll to the playlist and start playing it.

 

[Saladinos]

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.

No, actually.

- Voice Control doesn't require a very powerful phone. Google even offer it on the iPhone in their search application.
- Apple are screwing 3G owners with a sub-par experience. Even when it makes absolutely no sense. For example, only the 3GS can show a battery percentage indicator (http://www.apple.com/iphone/how-to/#settings.usage)

The 3GS also includes accessibility features such as being able to invert the screen colours. This happens through a CoreImage filter and I doubt very much that it would be impossible on the iPhone 3G. Certainly features like mono audio are possible.

 

[t0mat0]

lets all bookmark the thread, then get a video head to head going of some different phones and their ability to do voice control... They could be similar, or different. Accuracy is a big fact presumably in making the feature actually useful.

 

[gloss]

does anybody even find the voice control useless? the only time i could see it being cool was if you were across the room you could ask "what time is it?" "What song is this?" "who just called?". But you can't even do that, you have to be close enough to your phone to press and hold the home button down. If you're close enough to your phone to touch it, why would you want voice controls? (this is not meant to be sarcastic, i actually want an answer to this question).

Because I use my phone when I drive the car, and it's a lot easier to find the one physical button on the front of the phone and tell it who I want to call or what I want to hear than it is to look for it manually.

 

[kdarling]

If you're close enough to your phone to touch it, why would you want voice controls?

Just a few...

• Jogging.
• Piloting.
• Driving.
• Bad vision.
• Handicapped.

It's also easier to say "skip track" or "play Beatles" or "next appointment" (in the case of WM) over BT, than to find the controls, especially on an all-touch device in your pocket or elsewhere.

I'd actually say that the fewer physical buttons a device has, the more it benefits from having optional voice control.

 

[Type121]

- Voice Control doesn't require a very powerful phone. Google even offer it on the iPhone in their search application.

Google's app just ships the audio as you spoke it to their servers for processing. The iPhone itself is not doing any voice recognition. It's the same with AT&Ts current voice dialing service.

 

[gloss]

Just a few...

• Jogging.
• Piloting.
• Driving.
• Bad vision.
• Handicapped.

It's also easier to say "skip track" or "play Beatles" or "next appointment" (in the case of WM) over BT, than to find the controls, especially on an all-touch device in your pocket or elsewhere.

I'd actually say that the fewer physical buttons a device has, the more it benefits from having optional voice control.

Ding ding.

I wonder how detailed the iPhone's voice control is. Can I say not just "Play The Beatles" but "Play The Beatles, Abbey Road"?

 

[jazz1]

What About Voice Control with BT Headset & Driving

My old BB 8830 worked great with a SuperAnt Handsfree BT. Do you think Apple will finally let BT headsets or handsfree speakers to work with these devices. I really miss this. I could dial out, answer call, and it would even announce who was calling in via an address book hook.