First Look: Google Voice Search Finally Comes to iPhone

With so many speculations (here, here) to expect the release last Fri and criticism about the delay (here, here), Google Voice Search is finally available on iPhone. Google Voice Search is bundled in Google Mobile Application as a new feature. So you can download or upgrade it here from App Store.

Initial testing is pretty impressive. You can launch Google Voice Search by just holding the iPhone to your ear. Wait for a beep sound and speak out your query. That’s it and Google Voice Search will transmit your voice query to Google servers, recognize the search terms and submit it to Google Search Engine. Alternatively, you can tap on “Voice Search” button and launch voice search. By making use of your iPhone’s location, the result returned by Google combines both standard & local search results. Say, you’re searching for “Pizza”. The search result will combine local restaurant information related to pizza.

By default, Google Voice Search may not be enabled. You will need to go to Settings and turn it on.

Though Google mentioned it works best for North American accents, voice detection is pretty accurate, even for non-native English speaker. Normally voice detection process takes around five seconds (sometimes more) to interpret your query. It’s acceptable and probably you’ll find that it’s much speedier than typing on virtual keyboard for lengthy query.

But don’t expect voice recognition is 100% correct. In some cases, you may need to try twice or even more to get the correct query. Google already knows its system is far from perfect. So it returns a list of similar search keywords to help it fix your query. Say, I tried the word “Pizza”. And Google misinterpreted it as “peace” and returned me the search result. As I tap on the search word “peace”, Google Mobile App will list out other possible search keywords and I can easily select the “Pizza” keyword.

In near future, as more & more people are using Google Voice Search, I believe the voice recognition engine will be further tuned and optimized. And, you’ll see Google to interpret your voice query more accurately.

Some may criticize Google Voice Search does not recognize names in Contacts. I’ll see it’s a nice-to-have feature in later release. But it’ll not put me off from using Google Voice Search as it’s just awesome.

To get Google Mobile App, you can download it directly from this iTunes link.

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Tagged as: google, google voice search, iPhone

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

1 m goode November 19, 2008 at 5:53 am: I would love to see this app released for the motorola krave. It has a full touch screen too, which is one of my favorite features. Check out the full specs sheet online at motorola.com/krave. I’ve been a fan of this thing ever since I started working with Motorola.