• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

What is your favorite voice search feature?

tjreishus

Android Enthusiast
Nov 8, 2009
746
94
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?
 
My favorite is:

"Map of Hot babes" :)


That yielded this on my X2:

33663d1283224717-scooter-babe-pictures-scifi_fantasy_map_slave_map_girl_jpg_rzd_198265.jpg
:D
 
Upvote 0
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.
 
Upvote 0
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.
 
Upvote 0
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.
 
  • Like
Reactions: johnlgalt
Upvote 0
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?
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones