The BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones wanted to find out which smartphone was the best listener, so he conducted a quick test of his own.
He spoke the same text into a Siri-equipped iPhone 4S and a Samsung Galaxy Tab, and compared the transcribed results.
Rumors have been that Apple will introduce enhanced voice recognition features in iOS 5. While such features have remained hidden in the developer betas of iOS 5, some have managed to dig into the software’s SDK and find evidence.
Now, it has been confirmed by an unnamed Apple employee that Nuance-based speech-to-text functionality in iOS 5 is very real, and it’s being tested at Apple right now.
Although BlueAnt focuses exclusively on Bluetooth communication gadgets (and now earphones), they aren’t as well recognized as some of the other names coming up in our review, and they don’t proffer up a ton of offerings. In fact, they currently only offer five; with the BlueAnt Q2 Headset ($100) positioned as their marquis headset.
Amongst other rumors about iOS 5 that somehow just disappeared into the ether come yesterday’s WWDC 2011 keynote was the advanced Nuance-powered voice control features that has been reported extensively over the past few months. The only mention of voice recognition was a throwaway line on a slide: “Option to speak text selection.”
Is that it? What happened to the voice control that we were all promised? Don’t worry just yet: according to a couple of prominent sources, Nuance-powered voice control is still coming to iOS 5.
The convention of rumor has it that the next major version of iOS 5 will boast some truly spiffy, industry-changing voice recognition and text-to-speech capabilities, courtesy of a broad partnership with Nuance… and if those rumors are true, than this could just be what it will look like.
Trying to thumb type a search query into your iPhone on the run sucks, and it’s sow to boot. Google knows it, which is why they have the Google Search app, allowing you to just dictate your search query when typing is otherwise inconvenient.
But it looks like Apple might have noticed it too. New job postings indicate Apple is looking to improve the native voice recognition capabilities of iOS.