What is your favorite voice search feature?

tjreishus · October 11th, 2011, 08:59 PM

I keep discovering new things about the voice search. Sure, there are the items that are already in the help menu that you can learn, but I'm finding that there are more that are really nice. To be clear, I'm talking about when you hold down the magnifying glass button (search button) for more than a second to get the voice search prompt to come up. I realize that the examples I'm about to give are actually just google search's, not really a function of voice search. Its just using voice search as a talk to text function.

Some of my examples:

"weather". Brings up a very nice web page of the current weather and forecast for where you are. Includes a slider to change times for the forecast later that day. You can also say "weather in portland oregon" and it will change from your current location to wherever you say.

"Denver Broncos". Brings up the score of the last game and the time the next game plays. I also tried "Tiger woods" during his last tournament and it brought up the current stats on him that day. If a football game is currently playing, it shows the current score and score by quarter. Those are the only ones I have tried with sports.

"how many ounces in a keg". From what I can tell you can ask for any conversion and it does it for you.

I use the "map of" feature a lot. I have bubble buttons turned on so that I can very easily call or navigate to the location I am looking for. If you don't specify a location, it will use your current location.

Examples of "map of":

"map of gas stations"
"map of mexican restaurants"
"map of bars in Portland Oregon"
"map of starbucks on Academy avenue"

Anyone else have some good ones to share?

HotDawg · October 12th, 2011, 10:06 AM

Hmm... "weather" and "How many ounces in.." just literally give me google searches. No nice weather page.

I've been using it to "call Mom" or someone else a lot.

tjreishus · October 12th, 2011, 12:36 PM

That is so strange. It works on mine and on my wife's bionic but when I went to some friends who have some T-Mobile google phones they also just get a google search result. They don't get the weather page like my wife and I do.

DanDroide · October 12th, 2011, 12:40 PM

My favorite is:

"Map of Hot babes"

Frisco · October 12th, 2011, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DanDroide

My favorite is:

"Map of Hot babes"

That yielded this on my X2:

tjreishus · October 14th, 2011, 01:49 PM

Another one I found

"What time is it in......." just say anywhere in the world.

Mine comes up with a google search, but the current time of the place I mentioned is at the very top of the screen

My friends doesn't do it on his T-Mobile g2x. It only comes up with the google search results without the time. Don't know why.

thetingster · October 14th, 2011, 06:06 PM

I haven't even used the voice features yet. I'm gonna have to start playing.

Vehtemas · October 14th, 2011, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HotDawg

Hmm... "weather" and "How many ounces in.." just literally give me google searches. No nice weather page.

I've been using it to "call Mom" or someone else a lot.

I think it depends if you have GPS and Google Location Services on.

I get the page he is talking about when I say "Weather in Toledo Ohio" or "Weather in Billings Montana".

tjreishus · October 14th, 2011, 07:07 PM

I wish we could pinpoint why some phones do it and others don't

Edit:

I turned off all my location services and tried it again. I was not able to get the weather to come up by just saying "weather", but I was still able to get the same weather page by saying "weather in billings montana" with all of them off. I was also able to get "what is the time in new york city" with all location services turned off. Other phones are not getting the same results I am.

tjreishus · October 14th, 2011, 07:18 PM

another one that works on my phone

This one is for the frequent flyer

"alaska airlines 4483"

For me, this brings up a page that says "flight status for alaska airlines 4483"

Shows it on time, departure city and gate
Destination and gate.

LrdAnkh · October 14th, 2011, 07:20 PM

Other than when i ask for maps all i get are results for Google searches.

Vihzel · October 15th, 2011, 01:18 AM

I just like that im able to use it while walking and not have to bother with typing out a text or email to someone with the screen jumping around. I love using map stuff and just regular search.

p8ntballah21 · October 15th, 2011, 08:12 AM

I use "navigate to..." all the time when driving.

I didn't know Voice Search was as flexible as it seems to be, kind of makes Siri look a little less ground breaking.

tjreishus · November 2nd, 2011, 09:45 AM

I now know two people with the 4S. When we compared our phones, we found that siri came up with less reliable answers than the bionic did when voice searching. We also did speed tests and they were pretty frustrated. I was surprised that they were getting 2.2 Mbps though. I can only get 750 Kbps on my bionic in 3g. 4G Im getting over 20 though.

Jerm13 · November 2nd, 2011, 11:54 AM

I have been looking for an exhaustive list of voice commands (not just google searches) that Android is capable of for a while with no luck. You would think one would be a little more heavily promoted.

Some of my favorites:

Navigate to -
Send text to - (complete with message)
Set alarm - (May need Alarm Clock Plus installed)
Note to self - (emails yourself whatever you say)

I thought for sure there was a command to launch apps you have installed- but "Launch" does nothing and "Open" strangely takes you to the Market listing for said app- what's the point in that?

The weather one is good, and I can see the flight tracker being awesome for frequent flyers.

What else is there?