No, it only speaks the result if there is single answer to say. If you ask it what is 15% of 51 it will speak the result. But if you ask a broad question (what is quantuum mechanics) it will just list all results.
I tried it on iPhone 4 as well and it does speak some answers. Touch the "i" button on the left of the red microphone button and make sure "Speak answers back" at the bottom is turned on.
For some reason I had English (Australian) active in the Google language settings even though I don't live there. It started reading the answers when I switched that to English (US).
I just tried it, and it's much faster than Siri. I wish I could have it replace Siri, but alas, iOS would never allow that. I much prefer the Google Now style voice over's Siri's as well.
Google originally announced this app back in August, and said it'd be in the App Store "shortly"... It's pretty obvious why Apple held this back in the approval process since it definitely competes with Siri's functionality.
Jellybean adds offline speech recognition (which is at least partly responsible for Now being wicked fast); there's no mention but wouldn't be surprised if they ported it to iOS for this app.
It's different than Google Now on Android, as the results are just the Google search results for the query. But when the Google Knowledge Graph provides an actual answer, it puts that up top and reads it out.
I would love to know the details here. What I'm suspecting is that Google has figured out a way to combine both client- and server-side processing for both maximal responsiveness and accuracy. Maybe there's even some Google Instant magic going on, so it'll basically predict what you are going to say and pre-fetch something based on that. I don't know much about voice recognition, but I guess it would speed up the client-side algorithm if it has knowledge that your next word is probably going to be either banana or apple.
This is Next Level Shit. This is absolutely next level execution. The responsiveness is incredible and it immediately falls through to a well-formatted search result if it can't give you a soundbyte or a Knowledge Graph result.
Unit conversions provide in-line converter widgets... it'll gleefully show you pictures of anything safe-search while playing dumb if you search for something "naughty"... web links you select pile up in little tabs that let you slide right back to the original query... it looks good... it makes pleasing sounds that let you know what's happening...
If Siri can stage a question to Wolfram Alpha, the result is great. But if she can't, she just lamely offers a button to (Search the web for ______?) that then kicks you out to Safari. Google voice search makes Siri feel clunky.
The voice recognition is verging on instantaneous. This is amazing work.
Indeed. I really wish there was a way to use this instead of Siri with the standard home button shortcut. Pretty much all it's missing is a way to do basic phone interaction (call X, text Y, remind me tomorrow) which should be pretty simple considering they apparently have real time voice recognition.
You can get pretty close, the tel URL scheme will let you make calls. MFMessageComposeViewController will let you send texts. Calendar stuff is already possible with Google Calendar so that could work pretty easily.
Its not that they couldnt do it. Its that they are expressely prohibited by apples patents. ( something about a unified search interface for your phone as well as the web )
> The voice recognition is verging on instantaneous.
Exactly! Shows you how much it has recognized as you speak. Immediate feedback. More important is the speed of getting back results. Google Now is certainly a little faster in that regard as well.
Reminded me of a 21 questions test with Siri and Google Now (on a Nexus with Android 4.1 I think) side by side as they listened simultaneously. It's interesting to see how both perform in different scenarios. Generally when Google search has the answer Google Now is a little faster. When Google search doesn't have a direct answer Google Now boils down to Google Search results - right there - as opposed to an offer to do a web search. In my experience Siri tends to have an answer more often.
The general theme was:
1. Questions that get answered by Wolfram Alpha were slower on Siri. In one test Wolfram Alpha didn't have an answer and Siri offered a web search where as Google's graph did have an answer.
2. For requests like "Call BestBuy" Siri looked up BestBuy stores and offered you the choice of which one to call where as Google Now said there were no numbers for BestBuy in the phonebook.
3. Sports questions (which I don't quite care about personally, sorry) tend to be answered way better by Siri. I remember a question about which sports personalities was taller and Siri had an direct answer with other stats whereas Google Now was a list of search result links - no ads yet. It was the same thing for another sports trivia question.
4. Siri would sometimes have to wait - almost like a timeout - on a response from Apple. Google Now didn't face such issues.
5. In some case Siri would take a little longer but give back more information - when you talk about restaurants it'll include reviews, price range and distance.
>> "Exactly! Shows you how much it has recognized as you speak."
That's the one thing about it I didn't like. The fact that I could see a mistake made me want to try and correct it (but I don't see any obvious way to say 'that last word is incorrect').
There is something about the voice recognition algorithm that uses later words to understand what you were saying earlier. For example, whenever I say, "Show me pictures of humpback whales" - GoogleVoice starts off with "Show me pictures of home" and then when I add the word "back", it corrects home to be hump.
To some degree, that's probably how the human brain works. If you say out loud "Show me pictures of Hump" and then just stop, it really does sound pretty close to "Show me pictures of home"
I am very, very impressed on how much better than Siri the voice recognition is in terms of speed and responsiveness. And, it works just fine on my iPhone 4, where Siri isn't an option.
The standard machine learning approach for doing exactly what you describe is to use a conditional random field. I don't think wikipedia has a great page on it , but check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_random_field for a jumping place.
CRFs are used in places like voice and images where recognition or decoding of a segment logically depends on the pieces near it.
For clarification, it's much more likely a Hidden Markov Model. Most speech recognition algorithms use some form of Baysesain probability model, HMM being the most commonly used e.g. Sphinx CMU.
Wow. I haven't tested IOS6 with SIRI, but when it was Google Voice v/s Siri on IOS 5.1.1 - there was no comparison. Google voice won hands down. Even in a noisy environment.
I've just bought a second hand iPhone 4s that will be upgraded to IOS6 so I can compare for myself. Until a month ago, Google was easily king of the hill.
Which is odd. I see no reason why English UK (or "actual" English as I like to think of it ;-) ) couldn't use English UK for recognition but speak back as if it were English US.
As it is it becomes unworkable set to English US it doesn't recognise stuff at all well with my accent, and English UK doesn't read stuff back which means that it's of massively limited use.
So great if you're in the US, for the rest of us, still a (very impressive) work in progress.
I agree with everything you've said, but unfortunately, it still just won't be used on my iPhone. There's no way I will launch the Google app then click on the microphone icon. Replace Siri with this and I'll use it, but as long as it's a separate app on my phone it won't get used.
Well, it's great for search, but things that people use Siri mostly for are "please call X", "please remind me to do Y" or "make an appointment for Z".
As long as the Google app cannot interface with Contacts, Reminders or Calendar, this is just an interesting tech demo and nowhere near a Siri replacement.
Exactly. I am amazed that so few people get this. It's not about speed or accuracy, but rather about being tightly integrated with other apps on the phone.
+1. Voice recognition is mainly about hands-free utility; interacting with the phone's features and functions. Google's implementation is impressive, but it will just be something fun to show off for now.
Agree with everyone else, on LTE this is blindingly fast. I also played with the goggles feature which read text on a watch face, identified the building I work in and seemingly instantaneously ocr'd text on a postcard!
This functionality is part of Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and later. You can access it through the "Google" app, the search widget on the home screen, the lock screen, etc.
It's so, so fast, but seems to have trouble with accuracy, at least when I've tried speaking to it. It almost seems to decide on what I've said earlier in my sentence before I finish my sentence, which I'm guessing is lower accuracy compared to waiting for me to finish talking before analyzing.
Wow, imagine if Apple actually exposed APIs that allow Siri to do what it does? This app would destroy Siri.
Edit: I'd go so far to say this is eerily similar to the issues levied during Microsoft's anti-trust case. Google clearly is unable to compete here for no other reason than artificial walls put up by Apple on their devices in software. This is mobile's IE vs Netscape.
Is it? Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the smartphone market. The objection to Microsoft was that it was using its complete and utter dominance of desktop computers in anti-competitive ways.
So far as I can tell anyone who doesn't like iOS' walled garden can pick up and leave - to the market leader, Google.
This doesn't at all seem like monopolistic behavior, just rather restrictive and perhaps unwise.
Yeah from a monopolistic point of view, it's not really the same. But there is an argument to be made that Apple has a monopoly on the tablet market right now.
My point was less about the monopolistic nature and more that this is very similar from a product perspective to IE vs Netscape. Microsoft used its internal platform APIs as a massive amount of leverage to force IE down peoples' throats, even though Netscape was technically superior on the core ability of rendering web pages. The seamless integration caused IE to win out and eventually catch up. The stark disadvantage of Google's app is nearly identical in nature to 3rd party browsers in the mid 1990s.
> Netscape was technically superior on the core ability of
> rendering web pages
No. Unless you are comparing IE3 with Netscape 3. NN4 and onward got worse, IE4+ got better. We now call it crappy browser but by the time IE6 was out it was a clear leader (well some my argue for IE5 on Mac).
I still remember first widespread CSS bits that started to appear in the wild with IE4— hover on links, fixed background.
It was possible to duplicate hover behaviour on NN4 but it was nightmarish.
Yeah I was actually comparing IE3 with Netscape 3, which was the point at which Microsoft decided to integrate it with windows explorer and was the point at which Netscape's fate was sealed.
The big difference being, Microsoft could make a better browser than Netscape, if they put their best team on it. I don't think Apple can compete with Google at search, unless they want to spend several billion a year (as Microsoft does).
For some reason this app seems to miss a lot of its advertised functionality in Germany, or maybe just on my phone.
The image search results aren't displayed in a scrolling slideshow at all, instead each result links to the desktop version of a typical image search result, showing the preview and information in a sidebar and the embedding web page on the left.
Yes, the voice recognition is very fast, but then again, most questions only work in English, no chance to get anything useful in German or other languages.
That's not really competition to Siri in this department.
Between this, the unlocked/contact free prices for the Nexus 4 and google maps? I'm typically an iOS guy and I'm right with you. If only they had put LTE in the Nexus 4!
Yes, for the moment. LTE will be standard in a couple of years time & by then voice over LTE will (hopefully) so we won't need the ridiculous hack of falling back to the 3G connection for voice with it's negative effects on battery life.
Until then, LTE is for those who have to have the latest thing, regardless of price or who actually need the data rates achievable with LTE and have coverage where you're likely to be using it.
>>Until then, LTE is for those who have to have the latest thing
Um, no. There's a mountain of difference between HSPA+ and LTE. The former is like having medium-speed cable Internet, and the latter is like having FIOS. This has a direct impact on user experience.
HSPA+ at 42mbps is still Pretty Damn Fast, even if it's not LTE. I'd have loved for there to be an LTE variant, but I don't think it's a dealbreaker given the alternatives.
Let's keep in mind here that one of Siri's core strengths, and why it must be a system level service, is that it can delegate queries to apps and 3rd party APIs. As impressive as Google's Voice Search is, it cannot execute tasks for users (reminders, setting appointments, sending messages) and, what's more, it would probably be a huge security to hole to let it access apps, the data of those apps, and execute code. This is the job of the OS. So let's be cautious about trumpeting this as a Siri replacement. At best it's a Nuance or Wolfram Alpha replacement.
This is true up to a point. To my understanding, in a sandboxed environment a third party AI can only work if it is incapable of choosing which application should execute the intents. All it can do is determine the intent and pass it along to the OS, which then presents the user with a confirmation or, in the case of multiple apps receiving the intent, a tiebreaking interface.
A possible workaround would be a cumbersome two-way permissions system ("can app X access app Y?" [and, for purposes of apps asking the AI to ask follow-up questions] "can app Y access app X?", ad nauseam), but this is something of an impractical solution, because the AI would need to be granted permission every time the user installs a new app to access that app.
So yes, Apple makes it the job of the OS. This is a design compromise that mitigates the risk that the user is overburdened with confirmation dialogs, choice dialogs, and/or permission dialogs. And for an AI that just works, I would say this is pretty key.
Android has a centralised 'account' system, to access things like twitter, facebook, gmail etc. These can be used for applications to connect to these services. Android also provides permissions for accessing contacts, call logs, calendars and latitude. So in some sense, Google have had to make Android do this as well, but it would be hard to do it with the way iOS currently works.
But it _could_ issue reminders, set appointments, and send messages if channeled through google's servers couldn't it? I'm sure there are many iOS users like myself who point the default apps at Google's calendars and mail. If the app calls back to google and says "put x on calendar for authenticated user y" then it would show up in the iOS apps.
As others have hinted, Android already enables this via intents. Google Now doesn't even have to be aware of the app you want to use to handle a specific action. For example, it just has to fire off a "schedule an event" intent, and Android will route that to your preferred schedule management app. There is no security hole here - it's simple event firing and consumption, except it happens across apps. Security is handled by allowing the user to select which app they want to consume the event, and annoyance is mitigated by allowing users to specify that the selected app should always be used as the default. It's a marvelous system, and is one of the design decisions that, IMO, makes Android a massively more powerful platform than iOS.
Siri must be system-level because Apple has prevented other apps from being capable of assuming system default roles. It is an effect of iOS's design, not an inherent flaw in mobile OSes.
This is exactly how I feel, there is no comparison, Siri is king of the hill for an Engineer like me. I use it all the time (in very noisy environments think power plant levels of noise) to set appointments, countdown timers/alarms, dictating texts, opening applications (as well as playing songs or other content) and asking it Engineering calculations with the help of Wolfram Alpha integration. Google's attempt can barely understand me at times and is useless in every other sense.
Wow...I can't remember being this blown away by a search development since...I don't know when (being able to Google mathematical formulas is pretty amazing, but not as everyday-useful)...
I asked both Google and Siri, “How much damage did Hurricane Sandy do?”
Google heard it as “How much damage did Hurricane Sandy too?” and returned with official Hurricane Sandy emergency info and latest news stories literally as I stopped talking.
Siri took nearly five seconds to register my question as “How much damage did hurricane you do” and responded with hockey league standings for the Hurricanes team.
And the execution of Google's product is more stylish than Apple's...given Google's lead in collecting voice data, nevermind their lead in search technology and algorithms...how can Apple hope to even compete in voice search except by forcing Siri on iOS users?
Google got the translation right first try, and the first result, which returned in less than a second, had "over $20 billion in damage" visible.
Siri took ~8 seconds to return "Ok sports fans, the Hurricanes appear to be in first place in the Southeast right now" followed by AHL team standings.
Apple has a lot of catching up to do here. They're going to have to start translating client-side, which Google has obviously figured out, and they're going to need a data source as rich as Google. It think the first part will get done at some point, but how will they match Google on the data side?
It's important to remember that Apple is a hardware company with a software habit. Google is a software company.
While I understand why Apple hates Google so much, I think breaking with Google is a mistake. Nobody can beat Google at software; Apple hardware + Google software is a wonderful combination, and if the two companies worked together we'd really see the apex of user experience.
The hardware/software split is too simplistic a view. The companies have their various strengths and weaknesses. For example, the graphics stack on iOS embarrasses Android's. It took how many years and how many hardware advances before flagship Android got scrolling as smooth as the first iPhone?
It's interesting how Samsung is basically stuck to Google at this point. I'm sure they'd love to switch to their own Bada or Android fork and capture more of the profit, but Samsung is absolutely abysmal at software.
If only Google hadn't stuck it to them with Android ALL users would be better off. We'd have Google apps on iPhone hardware and UIs. It hurts to think about how much better it could be.
We'd be better off in a world with no Android, where RIM still hasn't shipped a modern smartphone OS, and with a Windows Mobile/Phone environment that has broken application compatibility twice in the past two years?
I'm 90% sure this is an example of Poe's Law (that it is impossible to tell the difference between sincere extremism and a parody of extremism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law).
But it is worth remembering the various ideas that iOS "borrowed" from Android (or the improvements Android forced iOS to make) - including decent notifications, wireless syncing, multitasking, etc. Google for more.
Apple (and everyone) improves more rapidly with a viable competitor.
False. Apple is a software company. If you've ever had to develop any non-trivial smartphone application, you would see how the iOS SDK is lightyears ahead of Android's.
Apple is a software company (who also fuses design and software really well). Google is a computer science company.
On Android, voice recognition is built-in to the OS. On iPhone, they don't have this luxury and the app is relatively small, so I'm thinking almost all of it is done on the server. A link to a Google source verifying this would be nice though.
It is, indeed, on the server (at least on my Galaxy Nexus). It won't work if you turn the connection off. Maybe they have some sort of hybrid, though, because it does have offline recognition that can call people without a net connection.
This was exactly my experience. My iPhone struggled to understand me at times (albeit only 2 out of 20 times) - but the Nexus S (a fairly old phone) understood me 20 out of 20 times. It really whipped the pants off Apple - I was quite surprised.
To see so many posts above say that Google Voice was far below par of Apple was a surprise to me.
Note: I haven't tested IOS6 yet, so things may be different.
How do we know that Google is translating client-side? Is there a link to a Google source to verify this? The app is only 10 MB, so it would be very impressive if they actually accomplished this, but I can't find verification anywhere.
For current events, Google will always have the lead here. They have the full weight of all the searches that are being performed around the globe at any second.
I have always felt that it was a weakness in Siri that there wasn't a direct connection to a world class search engine. The whole "I don't know, Google it." exit point in the interaction flow was is really such a huge hole. The question then is can iOS voice assist compete with Android voice assist if Android comes with a readily accessible search engine? Its an interesting marketing challenge.
Why doesn't Google release such a thing for desktops? Voice commanding my PC or using it as a kind of a personal assistant has been my dream for like 10 years. I've tried quite a number of apps and nothing compares to Siri or Google's voice search.
You can kind of do the voice search stuff already (click the microphone on the Google search box). Desktop searches seem more reluctant to fork over Knowledge Graph results for some reason though. Voice Actions are, of course, not possible because that's not possible from a browser.
I haven't used an iOS device since I switched to the Galaxy Nexus about 5 months ago. How does this compare to Google Now on android 4.1?
In general I've been very pleased with voice search on Google Now -- just reading the blog post I wasn't too amazed by the examples they gave for iOS because it sounds identical to what Google Now provides. I assumed that Google would release these features for android before iOS, but am am surprised by the overwhelmingly positive comments others here have to say here. Can anyone do a comparison and shed some light?
I do have to say that Google Now is sometimes rather slow -- the voice recognition is very fast (type as you talk realtime) but web search can sometimes take 10+ seconds to load even when already connected to wifi. Other times, it just works.
If you're switching from an iPhone, and can make do with 16GB of space, buy the Nexus 4 once the reviews come in (unless the reviews show something startlingly wrong). The nexus phones are where you get the iPhone equivalent experience of fast, long term updates and no carrier BS. (Except the Verizon Galaxy Nexus, which is why Verizon isn't getting the Nexus 4).
Alternatively, if the 16GB isn't enough, or you must go Verizon your choices are either the HTC One X or Samsung Galaxy S3. Read the reviews see which suits you better.
There are a horde of cheaper phones. And yes its confusing the choice in the mid to low end. But if you're switching from an iPhone, those aren't aimed at the same market. You can get one of them, but unless you're still using a 3GS it will be an inferior experience.
Between Google Now, local voice recognition and Google's recent attempts to extract more factual data out of search results, they've created and are expanding some amazing stuff.
With the data that Google has, I can ask it math questions, ask it questions about release dates of movies or video games. And now I can query that data through Google Now (or will be able to as they pipe through from that dataset to exposing it through Google Now).
Funny, even with some of the features just in 4.2, Now became as much or more of an assistant than Siri. I still can't get over it will scan my email for packages and give me notifications about it. That to me is the epitome of why I love what Google does. They are good at data.
Try resetting the app by exiting it and removing it from the multitasking bar to force it to load from scratch on the next run.
That should work, because I've noticed the app is a little buggy and occasionally gets into a confused state where voice search, voice responses or both stop working. Doing that reset fixes it.
Perhaps in order to compete, Apple will need to get more nimble. For example, in iOS3, I could use voice recognition on my 3GS to play songs, skip forward, call people, etc (similar to Google's voice control) - it did not need an internet connection.
As of iOS5, you couldn't get this if you enabled Siri. So in order to do mundane stuff, you still had to enable a round-trip to an Apple server.
They should revert this so strictly local, mundane commands don't require an wireless latency.
Too bad Google isn't doing that much advertising of this for its own Android phones. Because Samsung sure as hell won't do it. They'd rather advertise their own bad replica of Siri.
I was getting into the video, but the responses by the anonymous users playing w/ the iphone is annoying. "Show me pictures of whales", shows some whales, "COOL!!!"
This is the first time I've used any Google voice recognition. I use Siri daily (mostly for setting reminders and checking sports scores) and find it works well. I was shocked at how quickly Google was able to convert my speech to text and get a result. It was almost real time. I was considering trying an Android device because I really like the look of Google Now. By letting me try the voice recognition part on my iPhone Google may have got me. Only problem is that I'm so locked into the Apple ecosystem. I think this is becoming a problem and hindrance to competition. People spend so much money on apps, and have to select specific music/video services for each phone OS that it makes it very costly to switch regardless of which phone has the best features and technology.
I tried this app on my wife's iPhone and I swear the voice transcription is _faster_ than my GS3. It looks faster than the Jelly Bean demos you can find on Youtube too. Whatever magic they are doing on iOS, it would be nice if they brought it to Android soon as well. :D
Only problem is that I'm so locked into the Apple ecosystem. I think this is becoming a problem and hindrance to competition.
No shit. Seriously, this isn't just dawning on you now, is it? This is the exact history of PCs victory over the initial Mac leader originally, and it's playing out in a similar way with iOS and Android today. It's exactly why everyone has been pouring billions into mobile development - everyone wants to be the next MS with a monopoly on the OS, because that's the natural outcome when there are such high barriers to conversion.
It's not just dawning on me but it has gotten worse in the last year or two. Because of the deep integration of iCloud in both OS X and iOS switching doesn't just mean losing the apps I've bought, it means a difficult migration process to different cloud services. It's possible, if a little time consuming, but for non-geeks it'll be very difficult. Not using iCloud in the first place would be the best solution but then I lose the (usually) seamless syncing experience that makes my device so useful.
Why do I get kicked into safari when I search for directions and click on the map? Whereas when I click on external web sites it loads in a tab within the app?
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 221 ms ] threadI can the "i" button in that video, but my app does not have it, and I don't get voice answers.
Edit: Switching to English (US) does give vocal answers, but then it doesn't seem to understand my South African accent anymore.
Google originally announced this app back in August, and said it'd be in the App Store "shortly"... It's pretty obvious why Apple held this back in the approval process since it definitely competes with Siri's functionality.
It's different than Google Now on Android, as the results are just the Google search results for the query. But when the Google Knowledge Graph provides an actual answer, it puts that up top and reads it out.
Unit conversions provide in-line converter widgets... it'll gleefully show you pictures of anything safe-search while playing dumb if you search for something "naughty"... web links you select pile up in little tabs that let you slide right back to the original query... it looks good... it makes pleasing sounds that let you know what's happening...
If Siri can stage a question to Wolfram Alpha, the result is great. But if she can't, she just lamely offers a button to (Search the web for ______?) that then kicks you out to Safari. Google voice search makes Siri feel clunky.
The voice recognition is verging on instantaneous. This is amazing work.
This application gave me one of those "sufficiently advanced technology" moments. Magic.
Crashed the first time I tried it.
Exactly! Shows you how much it has recognized as you speak. Immediate feedback. More important is the speed of getting back results. Google Now is certainly a little faster in that regard as well.
Reminded me of a 21 questions test with Siri and Google Now (on a Nexus with Android 4.1 I think) side by side as they listened simultaneously. It's interesting to see how both perform in different scenarios. Generally when Google search has the answer Google Now is a little faster. When Google search doesn't have a direct answer Google Now boils down to Google Search results - right there - as opposed to an offer to do a web search. In my experience Siri tends to have an answer more often.
The general theme was:
1. Questions that get answered by Wolfram Alpha were slower on Siri. In one test Wolfram Alpha didn't have an answer and Siri offered a web search where as Google's graph did have an answer.
2. For requests like "Call BestBuy" Siri looked up BestBuy stores and offered you the choice of which one to call where as Google Now said there were no numbers for BestBuy in the phonebook.
3. Sports questions (which I don't quite care about personally, sorry) tend to be answered way better by Siri. I remember a question about which sports personalities was taller and Siri had an direct answer with other stats whereas Google Now was a list of search result links - no ads yet. It was the same thing for another sports trivia question.
4. Siri would sometimes have to wait - almost like a timeout - on a response from Apple. Google Now didn't face such issues.
5. In some case Siri would take a little longer but give back more information - when you talk about restaurants it'll include reviews, price range and distance.
Source: http://youtu.be/z_pclCFpjgw (video)
That's the one thing about it I didn't like. The fact that I could see a mistake made me want to try and correct it (but I don't see any obvious way to say 'that last word is incorrect').
To some degree, that's probably how the human brain works. If you say out loud "Show me pictures of Hump" and then just stop, it really does sound pretty close to "Show me pictures of home"
I am very, very impressed on how much better than Siri the voice recognition is in terms of speed and responsiveness. And, it works just fine on my iPhone 4, where Siri isn't an option.
CRFs are used in places like voice and images where recognition or decoding of a segment logically depends on the pieces near it.
In a situation where I'm using voice recognition I need it to read the response back to me, without that it's next to useless.
Am I missing something? Or is it the things I'm asking?
Things like "How many meters in a mile", "Did the Tigers win?" and "What is the weather like?" all came up with an audible reply for me.
Which is odd. I see no reason why English UK (or "actual" English as I like to think of it ;-) ) couldn't use English UK for recognition but speak back as if it were English US.
As it is it becomes unworkable set to English US it doesn't recognise stuff at all well with my accent, and English UK doesn't read stuff back which means that it's of massively limited use.
So great if you're in the US, for the rest of us, still a (very impressive) work in progress.
Just fired it up now, and can attest it simply blows Siri's UX right out of the water.
Kudo's to the Google team!
As long as the Google app cannot interface with Contacts, Reminders or Calendar, this is just an interesting tech demo and nowhere near a Siri replacement.
Apple vs. Google, style vs. big data. While I love Apple's sensibilities, here's more evidence that data will win in the long run.
Edit: I'd go so far to say this is eerily similar to the issues levied during Microsoft's anti-trust case. Google clearly is unable to compete here for no other reason than artificial walls put up by Apple on their devices in software. This is mobile's IE vs Netscape.
So far as I can tell anyone who doesn't like iOS' walled garden can pick up and leave - to the market leader, Google.
This doesn't at all seem like monopolistic behavior, just rather restrictive and perhaps unwise.
My point was less about the monopolistic nature and more that this is very similar from a product perspective to IE vs Netscape. Microsoft used its internal platform APIs as a massive amount of leverage to force IE down peoples' throats, even though Netscape was technically superior on the core ability of rendering web pages. The seamless integration caused IE to win out and eventually catch up. The stark disadvantage of Google's app is nearly identical in nature to 3rd party browsers in the mid 1990s.
Yes, the voice recognition is very fast, but then again, most questions only work in English, no chance to get anything useful in German or other languages. That's not really competition to Siri in this department.
Until then, LTE is for those who have to have the latest thing, regardless of price or who actually need the data rates achievable with LTE and have coverage where you're likely to be using it.
Um, no. There's a mountain of difference between HSPA+ and LTE. The former is like having medium-speed cable Internet, and the latter is like having FIOS. This has a direct impact on user experience.
No, Apple has made it a job of the OS. There's absolutely nothing fundamental to the problem that makes it a job of the OS.
A possible workaround would be a cumbersome two-way permissions system ("can app X access app Y?" [and, for purposes of apps asking the AI to ask follow-up questions] "can app Y access app X?", ad nauseam), but this is something of an impractical solution, because the AI would need to be granted permission every time the user installs a new app to access that app.
So yes, Apple makes it the job of the OS. This is a design compromise that mitigates the risk that the user is overburdened with confirmation dialogs, choice dialogs, and/or permission dialogs. And for an AI that just works, I would say this is pretty key.
Security is just an excuse for not wanting to try and enable this.
Not when it comes to giving Google access to my personal data.
Siri must be system-level because Apple has prevented other apps from being capable of assuming system default roles. It is an effect of iOS's design, not an inherent flaw in mobile OSes.
I asked both Google and Siri, “How much damage did Hurricane Sandy do?”
Google heard it as “How much damage did Hurricane Sandy too?” and returned with official Hurricane Sandy emergency info and latest news stories literally as I stopped talking.
Siri took nearly five seconds to register my question as “How much damage did hurricane you do” and responded with hockey league standings for the Hurricanes team.
And the execution of Google's product is more stylish than Apple's...given Google's lead in collecting voice data, nevermind their lead in search technology and algorithms...how can Apple hope to even compete in voice search except by forcing Siri on iOS users?
*edit: Here's a screenshot comparison: http://danwin.com/words/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/google-vs...
Google got the translation right first try, and the first result, which returned in less than a second, had "over $20 billion in damage" visible.
Siri took ~8 seconds to return "Ok sports fans, the Hurricanes appear to be in first place in the Southeast right now" followed by AHL team standings.
Apple has a lot of catching up to do here. They're going to have to start translating client-side, which Google has obviously figured out, and they're going to need a data source as rich as Google. It think the first part will get done at some point, but how will they match Google on the data side?
It's important to remember that Apple is a hardware company with a software habit. Google is a software company.
While I understand why Apple hates Google so much, I think breaking with Google is a mistake. Nobody can beat Google at software; Apple hardware + Google software is a wonderful combination, and if the two companies worked together we'd really see the apex of user experience.
Another example: Google released Renderscript in early 2011 (http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/02/introducing-r...) only to deprecate it a little over a year later (https://developer.android.com/about/versions/android-4.1.htm...). We can cherry pick examples all day long, but the bottom line is that each company excels at certain things.
It's interesting how Samsung is basically stuck to Google at this point. I'm sure they'd love to switch to their own Bada or Android fork and capture more of the profit, but Samsung is absolutely abysmal at software.
But it is worth remembering the various ideas that iOS "borrowed" from Android (or the improvements Android forced iOS to make) - including decent notifications, wireless syncing, multitasking, etc. Google for more.
Apple (and everyone) improves more rapidly with a viable competitor.
Apple is a software company (who also fuses design and software really well). Google is a computer science company.
Maybe I'm wrong but I'm getting near instant voice recognition off a poor wifi connection linking to a slow internet connection.
In general I've been very pleased with voice search on Google Now -- just reading the blog post I wasn't too amazed by the examples they gave for iOS because it sounds identical to what Google Now provides. I assumed that Google would release these features for android before iOS, but am am surprised by the overwhelmingly positive comments others here have to say here. Can anyone do a comparison and shed some light?
I do have to say that Google Now is sometimes rather slow -- the voice recognition is very fast (type as you talk realtime) but web search can sometimes take 10+ seconds to load even when already connected to wifi. Other times, it just works.
Alternatively, if the 16GB isn't enough, or you must go Verizon your choices are either the HTC One X or Samsung Galaxy S3. Read the reviews see which suits you better.
There are a horde of cheaper phones. And yes its confusing the choice in the mid to low end. But if you're switching from an iPhone, those aren't aimed at the same market. You can get one of them, but unless you're still using a 3GS it will be an inferior experience.
With the data that Google has, I can ask it math questions, ask it questions about release dates of movies or video games. And now I can query that data through Google Now (or will be able to as they pipe through from that dataset to exposing it through Google Now).
Funny, even with some of the features just in 4.2, Now became as much or more of an assistant than Siri. I still can't get over it will scan my email for packages and give me notifications about it. That to me is the epitome of why I love what Google does. They are good at data.
Note for non-Americans: The app only speaks results back if your selected voice search app is 'English (US)'.
That should work, because I've noticed the app is a little buggy and occasionally gets into a confused state where voice search, voice responses or both stop working. Doing that reset fixes it.
Google, please release your maps app for iOS now!
As of iOS5, you couldn't get this if you enabled Siri. So in order to do mundane stuff, you still had to enable a round-trip to an Apple server.
They should revert this so strictly local, mundane commands don't require an wireless latency.
No shit. Seriously, this isn't just dawning on you now, is it? This is the exact history of PCs victory over the initial Mac leader originally, and it's playing out in a similar way with iOS and Android today. It's exactly why everyone has been pouring billions into mobile development - everyone wants to be the next MS with a monopoly on the OS, because that's the natural outcome when there are such high barriers to conversion.