When will the industry design a phone for all-voice commands?

[Papamalo]

This thread might be particularly interesting to developers, maybe not.

I realize over the past three years, that nearly all my complaints, and asking for tips have centered around getting my various phones (Motorola Moto X Pure, Galaxy 5, LG Esteem, and now an LG V30) to function basically hands free.
This was the promise of the AI/High tech world, now seen in Bixby, Google voice assistant, Siri, and Alexa.
Why hans't this particular sector of the technology been realized?
An example of something I have to practically totally reprogram a phone to do would be the following.
1: Use voice command to wake up/unlock, (Got my current phone to do this)
2: Open any app on the phone (Done)
3: Initiate any action in the app that I Opened ie: "Camera, take a picture" (Done)
4: CLOSE any app I am in by saying something like "Close current app" (Currently can't do this)
5: SWITCH from one app window to another (Currently Can't do this)
6: Lock/Restart/power off phone using voice command (Can't do this)

I had it the best with Moto voice, which I believe was baked in, (I could be wrong) but I think that at the premium prices we are paying, there would be some totally hands-free, voice-only options on all expensive or flagship phones. I mean either we're going full Star Trek with this show or we are not. Currently despite all the bragging and glowing self-promotions of major companies, this hasn't yet happened.
Am I alone in thinking this is a major shortcoming of the industry?
And a question? Does anyone here know of any phone specifically designed with voice commands in mind?
Here's the the future.
Thanks,
PM

 

[chanchan05]

It's already realized. It's called Bixby Voice.

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/most-useful-bixby-voice-commands/
https://medium.com/@ssaurel/bixby-voice-full-list-of-commands-for-the-galaxy-s8-and-s8-4e987d61af02

Close any app: either say "Close [app name]" or "Go back" (this mimics the back button)
Switch app windows: say "Switch Windows"
Restart: Can't do it directly, but you can turn on the auto restart function and set a day and time when it would do the auto restart every week.
Lock: say "Turn off screen". If your screen is set to lock immediately after screen off, this will lock screen.

But as you can see from the list above, there is a whole lot of other stuff you can tell Bixby to do. And you can practically use it no hands because it has commands to mimic actions on the screen, like swipe left or right, swipe up or down, etc.

Somebody even compiled a list of 1000+ commands you can give Bixby.
https://www.megebyte.com/list-of-bixby-voice-commands/

 

[mikedt]

I had it the best with Moto voice, which I believe was baked in, (I could be wrong) but I think that at the premium prices we are paying, there would be some totally hands-free, voice-only options on all expensive or flagship phones. I mean either we're going full Star Trek with this show or we are not. Currently despite all the bragging and glowing self-promotions of major companies, this hasn't yet happened.
Am I alone in thinking this is a major shortcoming of the industry?
And a question? Does anyone here know of any phone specifically designed with voice commands in mind?
Here's the the future.
Thanks,
PM

The haven't got to anywhere near the level of Star Trek with powerful computers yet. AFAICT with any phone or other mobile mobile device voice control, like Bixby, Siri, Cortana, Alexa, Google, etc. it depends on an always on internet connection, because all the processing is done in the cloud, on their servers.

"OK Google, turn ON flight mode"....works
"OK Google, turn OFF flight mode"....nothing happens!

 

[Hadron]

A genuinely smart version of this would also identify whether you are in a public space and disable itself if you are.

If there is one thing that would drive me to "go postal" (as they used to call it) it would be being surrounded by crowds chanting "ok Google phone home", "Bixby play Kylie Minogue", "Alexa load Android forums.com, start new thread, title how do I get my phone to ignore other voices when I'm dictating a post on a train?"

(Disclosure: I've disabled the voice assistant on my Pixel. Tried it for a few weeks, decided it added no value to me whatsoever.)

 

[Dannydet]

I think your search for the perfect voice only command phone is still years away until the industry still works out all of the bugs.
Until then we'll all have to grin and bear it.

 

[KBU2]

Unfortunately my ESP and online crystal ball can't predict such futuristic development.

 

[zuben el genub]

When somebody tells me how to get this symbol across in voice. @ I tried entering account information that used your email by voice. Couldn't get the phone to understand that symbol. Finally had to send a keyboard to the phone from Play Store on the laptop. I'd buggered the keyboard that came with the phone.

I can find the ASCII code for it. What is its other name? Like this: &=Ampersand

 

[mikedt]

When somebody tells me how to get this symbol across in voice. @ I tried entering account information that used your email by voice. Couldn't get the phone to understand that symbol. Finally had to send a keyboard to the phone from Play Store on the laptop. I'd buggered the keyboard that came with the phone.

I can find the ASCII code for it. What is its other name? Like this: &=Ampersand

You should just be able to say "at", if your voice recognition program was any good, it would know that you want to dictate an email address, especially if you said something like "Send an email" previously, and it's filling out the "To" field in a form. Sending an email or message entirely by voice, is one of those things I think a smart-phone voice assistant should be able to do easily. And if it couldn't IMO would rather negate the purposes of having things like Bixby and Siri on a phone.

I think @ is officially called "at sign" or "commercial at".

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Hopefully never. Always listening is scary.

 

[zuben el genub]

You should just be able to say "at", if your voice recognition program was any good, it would know that you want to dictate an email address, especially if you said something like "Send an email" previously, and it's filling out the "To" field in a form. Sending an email or message entirely by voice, is one of those things I think a smart-phone voice assistant should be able to do easily. And if it couldn't IMO would rather negate the purposes of having things like Bixby and Siri on a phone.

I think @ is officially called "at sign" or "commercial at".

Tried those. It was a no-go on a One Plus 5
That's why I'd never use voice commands on a phone. How do the Chinese keep words apart if Chinese is tonal?

 

[dan330]

there is a lot bugs... especially with how it hears speech. accents and tones are some big hurtles.

and for me.. i have to still look at the screen to make sure it is doing what i want.. not accidentally doing something i dont want. and if i am already looking at the screen.. then what bother with voice?

 

[chanchan05]

Tried those. It was a no-go on a One Plus 5
That's why I'd never use voice commands on a phone. How do the Chinese keep words apart if Chinese is tonal?

 

[Papamalo]

NICE.
But can it wake up a locked screen, and go from there?
I might have to go back to samsung if it can!
THanks!
PM

 

[Papamalo]

The haven't got to anywhere near the level of Star Trek with powerful computers yet. AFAICT with any phone or other mobile mobile device voice control, like Bixby, Siri, Cortana, Alexa, Google, etc. it depends on an always on internet connection, because all the processing is done in the cloud, on their servers.

"OK Google, turn ON flight mode"....works
"OK Google, turn OFF flight mode"....nothing happens!

I never had any problems with my Moto voice from my Moto X Pure (2015) because it believe it was baked in, and not processed in the cloud.
WHICH by the way SUCKS WORSE THAN AN UNSOLICITED OPINION FROM AN IN-LAW.
I MEAN really SUCKS. I drive around my major metropolitan city, practically swimming in 4g coverage, and STILL, when I NEED IT MOST, at the most random times, google will just NOT RESPOND.

If they just had a motorola that had 8GB RAM, a high body to screen ration and a decent rear camera, I'd buy it right now.
I has been mentioned to me (I think by JFalls) that at th4 time when Moto voice was implemented on the Motorola Motos X Pure, that Motorola technically was owned, and being developed by Google.
NEVER ONCE HAD A PROBLEM. didn't matter where I was or what signal I was getting. So I do not think it is as much a matter of us waiting for years for them to be able to do it, I think it is a matter of them just doing it right.
OK. Rant over. But I will say, I don't feel alone in my angst anymore.
Thanks.
PM

 

[Papamalo]

Unfortunately my ESP and online crystal ball can't predict such futuristic development.

Just gaze three years back at the Motorola Moto X Pure. It was perfect on all these counts. They blew it.

 

[Papamalo]

Right? They have the tech.
They just haven't figured out that we want to be Starfleet Academy Power users.

 

[Hadron]

Voice control of phones got a bit of mainstream attention here in the UK yesterday, when the Defence Secretary, speaking in Parliament, was interrupted by Siri on his iPhone.

Still, I supposed he should take comfort in the fact that somebody was listening to him, even if it was only Apple...

 

[chanchan05]

NICE.
But can it wake up a locked screen, and go from there?
I might have to go back to samsung if it can!
THanks!
PM

Yes. It even asks for a voice password:

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Voice control of phones got a bit of mainstream attention here in the UK yesterday, when the Defence Secretary, speaking in Parliament, was interrupted by Siri on his iPhone...

Did it say;

"Shall we play a game?"

 

[Hadron]

No, it started reading search results to him.

I think the problem was that he mentioned "Syria", and Siri took that as its cue. Though a few have since suggested that it might not be smart for someone in his job to be carrying an always listening device around with him everywhere anyway.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

OT: I'll admit i had no idea @Hadron.
BOT: What if you have a cold? Your voice sounds different.

 

[Papamalo]

So is Bixby cloud based, (Needs a wifi or strong 4G connection to respond) or hardware-based? (Like moto which was baked into the hardware. I think)
My main complaint was unreliability. And Must I refer to it as "bixby" all the time? can I rename it something COOL, like Uhluhtc (guess the reference) or something?

 

[chanchan05]

So is Bixby cloud based, (Needs a wifi or strong 4G connection to respond) or hardware-based? (Like moto which was baked into the hardware. I think)
My main complaint was unreliability. And Must I refer to it as "bixby" all the time? can I rename it something COOL, like Uhluhtc (guess the reference) or something?

Bixby is cloud based because it offloads the processing to cloud servers. There are petitions to make it offline. We'll see how that picks up. It's still just v2.0 anyway.
So far as well, the feature to rename isn't there yet, but Samsung forum people have confirmed that this is a common request and has said they passed it along the dev team.

 

[Papamalo]

All good news to my ears. I'm gonna make mine Scaramouch, MangoFandango, or Mxyzptlk .
Promising that if this is only the second iteration of this technology, where it could go in the next few years. Personally I think it should be android-wide, with all the money we pay.
Thanks for the info.

 

[dan330]

because i am a little paranoid.

I dont want to use an always listening CLOUD based feature.
i want to keep it on my phone... and only for it to go online if i ask it to look for something outside my phone database.

They want it online.. so they can get more info about me.... hate that shiiiit