Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Why no voice control on the 3G 3.0 update
- Thread starter Dinalli
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Speech synthesis of this quality requires a lot of processor power. Also, they want people to buy the new iPhone.
I think the reason for a lot of these things missing from the 3G is that the 3G is slow enough already with its processor/128MB RAM. By adding essentially more background apps (which I know the battery % and think voice dial are), it causes more strain on the iPhone 3G and thus an even further degraded experience. Some may argue well they're only small apps, but seriously - every MB of RAM lost is just one further way in which the overall 3G experience is diminished. Apple has to stop it somewhere. The iPhone 3G is already doing too much for its processor/RAM to handle. I mean it can't even handle a few Apple apps open, and then several web pages open and going back and forth without having to reload the entire page!
not sure i buy that, my last two lg phones were perfectly capable of voice commands
but your LG phone didn't have such a superior operating system on it.... ( Which requires lots of processing power )
i see your point, however i thought you had to press and hold the home key to open it. So does that mean its not a background app ?
It's a product differentiation issue, not a memory issue. The voice control software doesn't even run unless you press and hold the button. Once it's launched, it doesn't use that much memory. The CPU can handle it - that's why you can get voice control apps on jailbroken phones.
Apple simply wanted to make more of a differentiation to encourage upgraders, and it's reasonable - 3G owners can't really complain, since they were never promised it in the first place.
Apple simply wanted to make more of a differentiation to encourage upgraders, and it's reasonable - 3G owners can't really complain, since they were never promised it in the first place.
Most likely, Apple's implementation of voice control takes advantage of hardware specific to the 3G S.
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/06/17/3g-s-hardware-thurrott
Kind of like MMS, they could have implemented it for the older hardware, but they did not want to do the extra work for what they considered to be a lesser experience
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/06/17/3g-s-hardware-thurrott
Kind of like MMS, they could have implemented it for the older hardware, but they did not want to do the extra work for what they considered to be a lesser experience
Ditto that. My TI-99/4A, which I think I got sometime around when VIC-20's were popular, had better speech synthesis than the iPhone.
Did you mean to say, speech recognition?
In any case, the iPhone's previous "processor power" should be plenty.
Windows Mobile's Voice Command does a lot more than iPhone's Voice Control, and yet works fine on slower phones with far less memory.
There must be another reason.
Ditto that, too. This is (more or less) "low entropy" voice recognition - the software understands a pre-determined set of commands and words. Based on a small set of commands, it knows you can only be talking about something from your contacts or your itunes library. It's among the simplest types of voice recognition to implement, and the iPhone 3G has more than enough processing power to cope with it.
Right, your speech synthesis from the '80s was better than the iPhone 3G S.
Speech synthesis (not recognition), yes. There was a star trek cartridge, and you could fire up basic and issue text-to-speech commands that would soun exactly like the characters from the show. Lots of games had very good speech synthesis - all you needed was a little brick that plugged into a slot on the side. It was famous for its speech synthesis, in fact. It ran at something like 4MHz. iPhone should be able to spank it, but it most assuredly does not.
First, I know what n speech synthesis and speech recognition are. No need for people to keep asking me that.
Are you talking about this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUHVfb7LJpM
LOL, yeah that's way better than the iPhone.
I found a video of the Star Trek game. I can record myself saying "entering sector" and the numbers 1 through 9 and make it seem realistic as well.
I did find this, though ... the emphasis and way it talks is great, but the sound quality is garbage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN4fYDrQXkc
First, I know what n speech synthesis and speech recognition are. No need for people to keep asking me that.
Are you talking about this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUHVfb7LJpM
LOL, yeah that's way better than the iPhone.
Heh. Radiohead.
A Pig
In a Cage
On Antibiotics.
Actually, after watching this video, I see why the last one in my previous post sounded so real.
Because it WAS real.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVDE-6TtmFQ
I'm convinced that the speech synthesis on the TI-99/4A is not at all how speech synthesis works now.
Because it WAS real.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVDE-6TtmFQ
I'm convinced that the speech synthesis on the TI-99/4A is not at all how speech synthesis works now.