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

Kudos to ICS/GN on Voice Recognition

john30308

Well-Known Member
Dec 3, 2009
240
39
Two months with the phone and daily I'm still blown away by how well ICS and the Nexus work together for voice recognition and dictation. It's always worked pretty well in Android, but ICS absolutely nails it. Now that it processes simultaneously with your speaking and doesn't wait until you're finished to begin the work, it's so, so functional. You can actually pause and think of what else you're going to say instead of having to practically rehearse the sentence ahead of time. Android has always done voice dictation for texts fairly well, but now even several sentences in emails works great. Perhaps my favorite ICS improvement.
 
Honestly, I want to try and show this to my friends with 4S's, but then I realize it's not worth the trouble.

Rule #1: Never, EVER, show a cool Android feature to an iFan. No matter how awesome and useful it is, they will dismiss it as useless and unnecessary. Then when Apple inevitably steals it from Android, they will say it's awesome and revolutionary (notification bar, multi-tasking, voice to text, etc.). I've stopped discussing mobile technology with iFans completely. They lived in a walled garden and refuse to see the value in anything not Apple. Every once in a great while you'll run across an iPhone user that loves technology in general (like the Woz) and enjoys talking about the pros and cons of all devices, but in general iPhone users are close minded sheep that think Apple can do no wrong.

I showed my new Gnex to my bro (an iPhone user) and told him the browser on the Gnex is actually faster than Safari on the iPhone (given equal data speeds). Later that evening we were trying to look up something on the net (guitar tabs), and he insisted that he do it because he could find it faster because the iPhone is "just easier to use". Nevermind all browsers basically function the same regardless of the OS, the Nexus has a bigger screen with a higher res, and I already told him it was faster. I beat him to it and we ended up viewing it on my phone anyway because we could see more of the page due to the high res of the Gnex.

Before the Gnex came along the iPhone had many advantages over an Android phone. Reliability, ease of use, better quality apps (I'm only counting apps that are both iOS and Android), more apps, performance, the beauty of the OS, better screen, etc. Now all it has is better quality apps and that is becoming less and less true these days. ICS+Gnex trumps iOS+iPhone in every other category.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jmar and Thats
Upvote 0
I watched a demo of Siri given by an Apple empoyee when it was first announced. He kept saying how revolutionary and magical it was. Here are the main demos he gave along with their Android counterparts:

Siri: "Give me directions to the hoover dam"
Android: "Directions to hoover dam" or if you want turn by turn "Navigate to hoover damn"

Siri: "Wake me up at 6 am"
Android: "Set alarm for 6 am"

Siri: "Find me a qreek restaurant in Palo Alto"
Android: "Map of greek restaurants in Palo Alto"

Siri: "Search Wikipedia for Neil Armstrong"
Android: "Go to wikipedia Neil Armstrong"

So yeah, Siri, not so magical. Android users have been able to do 90% of what Siri does for the past year and a half. Hey, but at least it has a sexy female voice right? :rolleyes:
 
Upvote 0
Also, I wish android could set calendar events with voice commands.!

+1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've been saying that for the past year or more. In the google calendar webapp they have that "quick add" drop down where you can type stuff in to create an appointment like "dinner tonight at 5" or "meeting every wednesday at 8 am" and stuff like that. They could easily do that with voice commands by having you start your command with "New Appointment..."
or something like that.
 
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