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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

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.
mattmcknight 16y ago
When I am in the car driving, it is a great way to dictate notes to my self and others (to edit later), hands free. I end up forgetting some of those ideas when I don't get them recorded, and it's easier than going through audio recordings. The cool thing about speech to text is that there seems to be a learning algorithm behind it, so it does just keep getting better.
grammaton 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. Right, like if only Android would get multi-tasking, like the iPh...oh, wait....

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.

mattmcknight 16y ago

When I am in the car driving, it is a great way to dictate notes to my self and others (to edit later), hands free. I end up forgetting some of those ideas when I don't get them recorded, and it's easier than going through audio recordings. The cool thing about speech to text is that there seems to be a learning algorithm behind it, so it does just keep getting better.

grammaton 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. Right, like if only Android would get multi-tasking, like the iPh...oh, wait....