One of the bigger deals in Apple’s new IOS 5 is the integration of SIRI. Simply put it’s a voice controlled personal assistant. Its power is its ability to understand unstructured questions is nothing short of amazing. Before Apple bought the company it was an iPhone app. I wrote about it a year and a half ago.
Siri has spawned a bunch of articles pointing out other voice controlled apps, especially for Andoriod which is what my new Samsung Galaxy S II is. Last night, feeling a tiny bit of iPhone envy, I installed “Text by Voice.”
Text by Voice allows you to safely text while you drive entirely through voice. There’s no need to touch or look at the screen at all. Text by Voice will automatically read incoming text messages aloud and give you a chance to respond. You can also set an auto responder for incoming text messages, and have Text by Voice start automatically when you start driving. Text by Voice lets you compose texts on the fly. It runs in the background so you can use other apps at the same time. Drive more safely with Text by Voice.
It’s no Siri, but it allows you to dictate text messages very accurately. It will even automatically read incoming text messages aloud as received!
I forgot about that part.
This morning at 4:40 AM the Weather Service issued Coastal Flood Statements for two shoreline counties. Immediately Dame Judi Dench’s cousin Penelope began reading them.
“Geoff,” Helaine asked. “Why is there a British voice coming from your office?”
Sometimes there are things you can do that you shouldn’t! I’ve turned that feature off.
Text-by-voice also returns some absolutely hilarious results. I have a friend who uses it on her Droid all the time. You don’t know how many times I’ve gotten phone calls “uh…ignore that text.”
Have you tried Vlingo?