After reviewing the 2 previous voice recognition iPhone apps by Excuse me Services rather harshly, I knew Google’s new voice recognition option in their mobile app was up against a wall of skepticism. But, of course, you can never underestimate Google, who have literally taken the software industry by storm in the last 8 years.
I’m going to make this review short and sweet, like my experience with the app. After of course downloading from the App Store, I was ready to give this thing a shot. Needless to say I was anxious to see if it was going to live up to all the hype.
You’re first greeted with a search screen, here you can type in any question, any address, any search query, and Google’s advanced search engine goes to work, bringing you the most accurate results. To search via voice, you just hold the phone up to your ear like you are talking on the phone, and say whatever question or search topic you would like to google. The software senses the phone is rotated in the ‘talk’ position, and beeps, to alert you it is ready to receive your voice instructions. Using your voice or typing, both prove to be quick and effortless. Voice recognition is on par with similar applications, and at times is a lot better.
And that’s about it. Google’s mobile app is easy to use whether you are talking or typing, and with only 1 screen, (a settings screen and a screen with links to google’s other softwares) proves to be the least tedious of the other search softwares that recognized user voices.
I would like to see the speakerphone voice recognition be more accurate, handset recognition is almost dead on. I would also like to see voice commands for other applications. But that may defeat the application’s ‘simple’ purpose. Although maybe not living up to quite all of the hype, this application does prove to be the best in its class, and that Google is still cutting edge when it comes to software development.