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If I might go off on a tangent about one of his points I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately… “Speech recognition is actually useful. Big surprise here. I

If I might go off on a tangent about one of his points I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately… “Speech recognition is actually useful. Big surprise here. I can tweet, search the web etc. with minor edits to my dictated text” For those who don’t know Android has a built in Voice Recognition API so any application can easily put use it for input while Apple has steadfastly refused to include this feature because “it doesn’t work well” (Dragon has an app but you can’t integrate that into an application). This, to me, is a sign of what will cause Apple’s lead to crumble. Apple’s one real weakness is they demand perfection but some things just can’t achieve that. As has been pointed out by several HN featured articles Voice Recognition may never be perfect. But it’s still useful. It can still hit 90%+ efficiency much of the time and for many applications that’s enough.

albemuth 16y ago
Not being a native speaker I sometimes feel silly using it, but there's also the feeling of "thank god I didn't have to type that"
thwarted 16y ago
(Dragon has an app but you can’t integrate that into an application) I don't think this capability of android is recognized for the amount of power it provides both the developer and the user. It's often said that things like the dialer or contact list can be changed out if the user doesn't like the default one, but that level of integration isn't just at the app level, it's at all the system services. If Android didn't provide voice recognition out of the box, it would be entirely possible to replace or augment the default input method with one as a third-party app install. There's nothing special about this from a user standpoint. This is actually quite common on android, the most frequent example being replacement ringtone apps (which is odd because it's not that hard to use any random file as a ringtone as it is (make a directory named notifications on the sdcard and put the files in there, they show up in the sound selection dialog), they are mostly just better interfaces, although there are a few that have serious value adds, like recording a new ringtone live and editing it). I found a keyboard app called "Better Keyboard" that I consider to be truly better than the default keyboard functionality provided.
- commandar 16y ago
  Actually, replacement Input Methods are more common than the ringtone things, in my experience. It's also an area where you see a fair amount of innovation taking place on Android -- there are IMEs like Better Keyboard or Smart Keyboard Pro (which I use personally) but there are also people experimenting with things like Swype. Android really lowers the bar for creative people developing new ways of interacting with mobile devices, and I think that's probably the single most exciting thing about the platform.
  - thwarted 16y ago
    Most definitely true. I think things like ringtone customizers get slightly more mindshare, at least in the circles I've been following, because people are used to doing that on other phones -- it's rare, so far, to be able to customize input methods on most phone models, so that's not something people commonly look for. When I've told people they can get a different keyboard for Android, they've been surprised.
TeHCrAzY 16y ago
I have huge difficulties with the voice recognition; it really doesn't handle anything other than an american accent particularly well (I'm Australian).
jsz0 16y ago
My compliant about the voice features in Android isn't just accuracy but also speed. It's just too slow. I can type much faster than it can do speech-to-text. If it does mess something up going back to edit on Android is a bit clunky (nothing like the magnifying glass feature on iPhone) which slows me down even more. Apple has their Voice Control feature and bought Siri so I would imagine they're working on something. It's a feature that would be useful if it actually worked better in my opinion.
- TomOfTTB 16y ago
  I don't disagree but I don't think it is wise to hold that against the platform. I'd much rather have it built in and refined for when processors get faster than to have Google wait for that to happen (Plus I personally find it to be fine for short messages now)
- Crossfire 16y ago
  I agree, the voice speed is too slow, and it sends the data back to google for analysis each time, rather than doing it on the phone, which means if you are anywhere with less than stellar reception, or if you have limited data, it can become instantly useless. If you could download the maps for you local area, and do vocal direction searches on it, or search your phone without having to be connected to the internet, I could see myself using it a lot more. As it is, I have found that as useful as voice recognition might be, in reality it is far out-shadowed in usefulness by google gestures, which is quite simply the greatest phone app I have yet discovered. I have gestures set as one of my four taskbar apps in Cyanogen, and in the quickbar, this means that from anywhere In the phone i am only ever two touches away from it. What google gestures does, for those who have not tried it, is to index everything in your phone, contacts, apps, songs, games, the lot. it then allows you to search through it all by drawing a full screen letter. If a single letter does not narrow the search down enough, wait a second and enter in a second letter. I have never had to enter more than three letters to have the correct item appear, backspace is back swipe, clear is forward swipe. All processing is done on the phone, results are instantaneous and every result gives the option to play, view, edit, send message, call, locate or delete right from the same window. It is genius. I never seem to see it mentioned in android reviews, but for me this is androids killer app. Combined with swype or shapewriter it totally changed the way i interacted with my phone. Voice recognition may never reach %100, and it may require generalist AI before it does, but contextual gesture recognition is here now and it works fantastically. While iphone has some apps that perform similar task, they are all for a specific purpose, like swype but just for sending texts. Whereas android allows you to set swype as a system wide input default. Ubiquitous seamless context sensitivity is just so beautiful, it is hard to imagine it not becoming a yardstick against which things are measured. Instead of asking if can email or skype, we may well be asking if it can detect when I'm at the movies and turn itself on silent, or adjust its brightness to match the setting, or make the heater turn on when im getting home. So much of what we use our phones for is predictable, as the sample set of your daily routine grows, your devices should be able to learn and adapt, just as its dictionary builds a lexicon of your used words, so it should build of memory of your default actions and be ready to activate proactively rather than reactively. Why should I have to hunt for the TV remote app, it knows that i am infront of the TV, and that the TV app is what I usually use when I am there, with a bit of context sensitivity the whole debate around ease of use could rightly shift from the sleek ui, to the sleek life integration, which is really where google shines. Oh and in regards to your issue of going back and editing, I had the same issue, until I finally discovered what that seemingly superfluous trackball was for, precise letter by letter control.
Sidnicious 16y ago
I have never understood the appeal of speech-to-text on mobile phones. I don't want to sit next to someone on the train while they enunciate a long email or a text message to their girlfriend. Nor do I want to shout my own internet musings at those around me. Besides, these days most of us are used to editing as we write. Good PC dictation software makes that easy. On a mobile phone, you'll end up editing it by thumb anyway. - - - The problem with not demanding perfection is that once a feature ships and it's "good enough", it's probably going to stay "good enough" forever. Yep, Android's has lots of cool features that iPhone has not, but a lot of its core functionality isn't fucking done.
- theBobMcCormick 16y ago
  I certainly wouldn't want to dictate a "long email or text message", but I do find the speech to text useful with the built in navigation, web search, and yeah, occasionally short text message replies. For example, from the Android "car dock" app, you can click voice search and say "navigate to Barnes and Nobles", etc.
- commandar 16y ago
  >Yep, Android's has lots of cool features that iPhone has not, but a lot of its core functionality isn't fucking done. Like? I've had a G1 since launch, and I can't really agree with this sentiment. Yes, Android has had some very rough edges in terms of UI, but, if we're talking core functionality, I've never felt like anything was flat out unfinished. There've been a lot of things added iteratively over the last two years that I wouldn't want to do without now, but everything has been building on the same fundamental base that they shipped with 1.0. I think it's hard to claim that the competition isn't also guilty of shipping unfinished products. Take a look at the evolution of the iPhone -- all the moaning about copy+paste, multitasking as an afterthought, the fact that cross-app data sharing is still impossible under Apple's ToS, or the fact that Apple fed people a line of bullshit for nearly a year that "if you want to develop for the iPhone, make web apps."
  - callahad 16y ago
    If I was doing anything on my ADP1 when I got an incoming call, the phone would become completely unresponsive and quite warm to the touch while it tried to page out other activities in order to allow me to answer the phone. Only about one time out of five did it actually finish whatever it was trying to do in time for me to answer the call.
maxjg 16y ago
My (admittedly shallow) knowledge on Android's speech recognition is that it's being done server side. In other words, I suspect the reason Apple's not doing native voice recognition on the iPhone is that they don't have the processing power (either on the phone or their servers) to do so.

albemuth 16y ago

Not being a native speaker I sometimes feel silly using it, but there's also the feeling of "thank god I didn't have to type that"

thwarted 16y ago

(Dragon has an app but you can’t integrate that into an application) I don't think this capability of android is recognized for the amount of power it provides both the developer and the user. It's often said that things like the dialer or contact list can be changed out if the user doesn't like the default one, but that level of integration isn't just at the app level, it's at all the system services. If Android didn't provide voice recognition out of the box, it would be entirely possible to replace or augment the default input method with one as a third-party app install. There's nothing special about this from a user standpoint. This is actually quite common on android, the most frequent example being replacement ringtone apps (which is odd because it's not that hard to use any random file as a ringtone as it is (make a directory named notifications on the sdcard and put the files in there, they show up in the sound selection dialog), they are mostly just better interfaces, although there are a few that have serious value adds, like recording a new ringtone live and editing it). I found a keyboard app called "Better Keyboard" that I consider to be truly better than the default keyboard functionality provided.

commandar 16y ago
Actually, replacement Input Methods are more common than the ringtone things, in my experience. It's also an area where you see a fair amount of innovation taking place on Android -- there are IMEs like Better Keyboard or Smart Keyboard Pro (which I use personally) but there are also people experimenting with things like Swype. Android really lowers the bar for creative people developing new ways of interacting with mobile devices, and I think that's probably the single most exciting thing about the platform.
- thwarted 16y ago
  Most definitely true. I think things like ringtone customizers get slightly more mindshare, at least in the circles I've been following, because people are used to doing that on other phones -- it's rare, so far, to be able to customize input methods on most phone models, so that's not something people commonly look for. When I've told people they can get a different keyboard for Android, they've been surprised.

TeHCrAzY 16y ago

I have huge difficulties with the voice recognition; it really doesn't handle anything other than an american accent particularly well (I'm Australian).

jsz0 16y ago

My compliant about the voice features in Android isn't just accuracy but also speed. It's just too slow. I can type much faster than it can do speech-to-text. If it does mess something up going back to edit on Android is a bit clunky (nothing like the magnifying glass feature on iPhone) which slows me down even more. Apple has their Voice Control feature and bought Siri so I would imagine they're working on something. It's a feature that would be useful if it actually worked better in my opinion.

TomOfTTB 16y ago
I don't disagree but I don't think it is wise to hold that against the platform. I'd much rather have it built in and refined for when processors get faster than to have Google wait for that to happen (Plus I personally find it to be fine for short messages now)
Crossfire 16y ago
I agree, the voice speed is too slow, and it sends the data back to google for analysis each time, rather than doing it on the phone, which means if you are anywhere with less than stellar reception, or if you have limited data, it can become instantly useless. If you could download the maps for you local area, and do vocal direction searches on it, or search your phone without having to be connected to the internet, I could see myself using it a lot more. As it is, I have found that as useful as voice recognition might be, in reality it is far out-shadowed in usefulness by google gestures, which is quite simply the greatest phone app I have yet discovered. I have gestures set as one of my four taskbar apps in Cyanogen, and in the quickbar, this means that from anywhere In the phone i am only ever two touches away from it. What google gestures does, for those who have not tried it, is to index everything in your phone, contacts, apps, songs, games, the lot. it then allows you to search through it all by drawing a full screen letter. If a single letter does not narrow the search down enough, wait a second and enter in a second letter. I have never had to enter more than three letters to have the correct item appear, backspace is back swipe, clear is forward swipe. All processing is done on the phone, results are instantaneous and every result gives the option to play, view, edit, send message, call, locate or delete right from the same window. It is genius. I never seem to see it mentioned in android reviews, but for me this is androids killer app. Combined with swype or shapewriter it totally changed the way i interacted with my phone. Voice recognition may never reach %100, and it may require generalist AI before it does, but contextual gesture recognition is here now and it works fantastically. While iphone has some apps that perform similar task, they are all for a specific purpose, like swype but just for sending texts. Whereas android allows you to set swype as a system wide input default. Ubiquitous seamless context sensitivity is just so beautiful, it is hard to imagine it not becoming a yardstick against which things are measured. Instead of asking if can email or skype, we may well be asking if it can detect when I'm at the movies and turn itself on silent, or adjust its brightness to match the setting, or make the heater turn on when im getting home. So much of what we use our phones for is predictable, as the sample set of your daily routine grows, your devices should be able to learn and adapt, just as its dictionary builds a lexicon of your used words, so it should build of memory of your default actions and be ready to activate proactively rather than reactively. Why should I have to hunt for the TV remote app, it knows that i am infront of the TV, and that the TV app is what I usually use when I am there, with a bit of context sensitivity the whole debate around ease of use could rightly shift from the sleek ui, to the sleek life integration, which is really where google shines. Oh and in regards to your issue of going back and editing, I had the same issue, until I finally discovered what that seemingly superfluous trackball was for, precise letter by letter control.

Sidnicious 16y ago

I have never understood the appeal of speech-to-text on mobile phones. I don't want to sit next to someone on the train while they enunciate a long email or a text message to their girlfriend. Nor do I want to shout my own internet musings at those around me. Besides, these days most of us are used to editing as we write. Good PC dictation software makes that easy. On a mobile phone, you'll end up editing it by thumb anyway. - - - The problem with not demanding perfection is that once a feature ships and it's "good enough", it's probably going to stay "good enough" forever. Yep, Android's has lots of cool features that iPhone has not, but a lot of its core functionality isn't fucking done.

theBobMcCormick 16y ago
I certainly wouldn't want to dictate a "long email or text message", but I do find the speech to text useful with the built in navigation, web search, and yeah, occasionally short text message replies. For example, from the Android "car dock" app, you can click voice search and say "navigate to Barnes and Nobles", etc.
commandar 16y ago
>Yep, Android's has lots of cool features that iPhone has not, but a lot of its core functionality isn't fucking done. Like? I've had a G1 since launch, and I can't really agree with this sentiment. Yes, Android has had some very rough edges in terms of UI, but, if we're talking core functionality, I've never felt like anything was flat out unfinished. There've been a lot of things added iteratively over the last two years that I wouldn't want to do without now, but everything has been building on the same fundamental base that they shipped with 1.0. I think it's hard to claim that the competition isn't also guilty of shipping unfinished products. Take a look at the evolution of the iPhone -- all the moaning about copy+paste, multitasking as an afterthought, the fact that cross-app data sharing is still impossible under Apple's ToS, or the fact that Apple fed people a line of bullshit for nearly a year that "if you want to develop for the iPhone, make web apps."
- callahad 16y ago
  If I was doing anything on my ADP1 when I got an incoming call, the phone would become completely unresponsive and quite warm to the touch while it tried to page out other activities in order to allow me to answer the phone. Only about one time out of five did it actually finish whatever it was trying to do in time for me to answer the call.

maxjg 16y ago

My (admittedly shallow) knowledge on Android's speech recognition is that it's being done server side. In other words, I suspect the reason Apple's not doing native voice recognition on the iPhone is that they don't have the processing power (either on the phone or their servers) to do so.