When I asked Jeannie to take a note, it started recording me–but never showed me what it had transcribed. It set an alarm when I asked it to, and the alarm went off right on schedule, but I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off because Jeannie hadn’t set it using Android’s built-in alarm system. Other things Jeannie did were just mysterious. When I said “Okay,” it responded “Okay by me, too.” Ouch.) It asked whether I wanted to leave it to go to my texting app. (Jeannie can be a bit passive-aggressive, too. When I asked Jeannie to send a text, for instance, it asked for the recipient’s name, but then just switched me to my texting app, without starting the text or adding the name of the recipient. Unfortunately, signing up Jeannie as your personal assistant is a bit like hiring a slacker with a poor work ethic. Pannous says that the Plus version of the app should process your speech more quickly. Alternatively you can purchase a $3 Voice Actions Plus app with the same capabilities. To end the confusion, the third-party developer, Pannous, changed the name of its app to Jeannie (it still shows up on my phone as Voice Actions, however, even though I’ve updated the app). Up until about a week ago, this app was called Voice Actions, just like the Google app. Many other systems stop listening as soon as they detect a pause, forcingyoutospeakreallyfastsothattheydon’tcutoffbeforeyou’redone. Also, when you give Vlingo a command, it continues listening to you until you press Done. It can send tweets and update your Facebook status. But the next time I asked it to “send an email,” it simply offered to Google the phrase “send an email.” The first time I tested Vlingo, for instance, it did a competent job of preparing an email message. Even odder were capabilities that it had one day and seemed to lose the next. It couldn’t perform a number of functions–such as reading me my calendar or setting an alarm–at all. In fact, I was disappointed by this free app overall. I tried Vlingo’s voice recognition and found it generally disappointing. You can choose to use Google’s system or Vlingo’s home-grown processing. Vlingo is one of the few Android assistants that doesn’t rely exclusively on Google’s voice recognition system. When I asked for the day’s weather, for instance, instead of reading me the day’s forecast–as Speaktoit Assistant did–Voice Actions searched the Web for a weather report that I had to read off my screen this arrangement isn’t a problem if you’re walking along the street, but it’s definitely inconvenient if you’re driving. But you can touch an icon in the corner of the window to bring up the same information in the default apps.įor a number of tasks, however, Voice Actions wasn’t quite as hands-free as I might have wished from a virtual assistant. When I asked Speaktoit to search the Web or to find a location on a map, it brought the results up in a window of its own, rather than opening my default browser or mapping software. Speaktoit handled most of its assignments well, including checking the weather, making phone calls, and answering questions (for instance, “How tall is the Empire State Building?”). Female assistants can wear anything from a formal gown more appropriate for a red-carpet event to a skimpy vest-and-tie combination that looks as though it belongs (temporarily) on a stripper. You can alter your assistant’s appearance in myriad ways, including changing his/her sex, hair style, and nose size. I spent a lot of time last week talking to my phone and I found it oddly helpful that the free Speaktoit Assistant presented me with an actual (albeit animated) person that I could talk to. My favorite assistants: Speaktoit Assistant and Google’s Voice Actions. I put all of the helper apps I tested through a series of 18 tasks, from checking the weather and stock prices to sending an email message, mapping a location, and tweeting. So virtual assistants differ from one another primarily in their ability to execute your commands after receiving them from the server. I found it superior to Siri’s (though in fairness, I didn’t spend nearly as much time with Siri as I did with my Android phone). Google’s speech recognition is uncannily accurate. Both Apple and Google send what you say to their servers, whose powerful processors decipher your speech and then send a text version back to your phone.
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