I think this surfaces a bigger issue in that voice as an interface to our computing devices is a dead end for the majority of situations. Note - I’m not dismiss

I think this surfaces a bigger issue in that voice as an interface to our computing devices is a dead end for the majority of situations. Note - I’m not dismissing accessibility where there is huge potential. Also note - I’m talking about fully developed voice interaction on par with keyboards, touch screens, mice etc, not just “turn on the lights” or “play the Beatles”. For a new technology to succeed it needs to be better than what already exists. Voice is absolutely not that. Compared to a keyboard or a GUI it is clumsy, in-precise and cumbersome. It is not convenient in a huge number of situations, for instance in places where other people are around, like offices or open spaces, or noisy conditions. It presents privacy issues that tactile interfaces do not. In most cases voice acts as an additional input method to one that already exists, and as such adds cognitive load on the user, they now have two very different ways of achieving a given task, so there is an added initial choice, plus then having to think about how to achieve the task this way. A lot of tasks will not be possible via voice for a long time, so there is that added decision as well, can I even do this with voice. People will say, ah but that’s not a problem with voice, it’s due to the immaturity of language processing. When we can more accurately understand what the user wants, voice will become a viable interface. There is something to that, but we are a long, long way from there, and it still doesn’t address a lot of the issues I raised above. Apple are often chided as being way behind in voice. I’m beginning to think that they realised these problems a long time ago, and have decided not to put the effort in, apart from presenting it as an accessibility feature.