
Google’s most advanced voice search has arrived on iOS - cleverjake
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/googles-most-advanced-voice-search-has.html
======
jpxxx
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.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
The voice recognition is outstanding but every query I'm trying (sports, news,
weather) is returning text results.

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?

~~~
jpxxx
Try something with a one-shot answer like "When was the constitution of
Argentina ratified"? It should speak assuming the latest Google app version.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
I've tried weather in Glasgow, the time in San Francisco and a bunch of other
very simple stuff.

------
Gring
A year ago, Apple was asked whether the iPhone 4 or even the 3GS will get
Siri. They said no, to do good voice search, you need advanced tech - several
microphones, special noice canceling DSPs, fast processors - so get out and
buy a new iPhone.

Well, I just did the test. Google voice search on a 40 month old iPhone 3GS is
more responsive and much more precise than Siri on the latest and best 1 month
old iPhone 5.

Apple has so much egg on their face.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
I tested on an iPhone 5, Nexus S and an iPad 2. Most things worked well across
the board but there is some weirdness. Eg "what's 2 + 2" returned the correct
result on the iPhone 5, worked on the iPad 2 after several tries and just
failed every time on the Nexus S.

Some times the failed was result was just weird, but most often it was "what's
to plus 2".

What's going on? Still more impressive than Siri.

~~~
r00fus
Did you use it with a headset or via device microphone?

The noise-correction on the older device microphones aren't as good as the
newer ones (ie, anything that's Siri compatible has at least 2 microphones for
noise-reduction).

So perhaps Apple does have a legitimate (although self-serving) reason not to
deploy Siri on older tech - it may suck if you have lots of ambient noise or
distortion.

------
danso
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?

*edit: Here's a screenshot comparison: [http://danwin.com/words/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/google-vs...](http://danwin.com/words/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/google-vs-siri-sandy.png)

~~~
hornbaker
I tried the same test.

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?

~~~
cloudwalking
They won't. They can't.

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.

~~~
spullara
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.

~~~
commandar
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?

------
confluence
I've said it before - and I'll say it again - Google is about to crush Apple
into the ground. The fundamental difference between the two is that Apple
brings style but Google brings substance.

Now in the short term style > substance for the simple reason that it is easy
to repackage something that is difficult to use into something simple.

Making things easy to use is obvious for designers - but not for engineers -
because they focus on actually making complex things work instead of making it
easy to use.

However, in the long run substance > style for the simple reason that anything
that can be repackaged to make it simple will either become a minority player
or a commodity item because style and veneer are easily copyable but substance
isn't. Substance is a natural monopoly, and monopolies make lots of money.

What you see here is the fruition of substance over style - big data is a
monopoly and Google owns it hard.

Google will be the first trillion dollar corporation. And it will do so by
making everything else apart from Artificial Intelligence a commodity.

Disclaimer: I'm looking to buy Google stock and I recently exited an Apple
short.

~~~
pkulak
Apple has a monopoly on Apple. What other company can put out one new phone
per year and still rake in money? HTC and Samsung wish they could do that, but
they still each spread themselves over a half dozen budget phones and a new
high-end phone every 3 months. Apple has built up so much good will and trust
that they can do what no other company can: nothing. They can just work on one
phone, all the engineering and supply chains, for an entire year before
releasing it. That's why you're never going to see Android hardware like the
iPhone 5. I wouldn't write off Apple quite yet.

~~~
confluence
Goodwill and trust works if your product is differentiable. Apple's products
are glass screens with grey backgrounds. Android has surpassed iOS parity in
many ways, and is equivalent in others.

Both the Nexus 4/10 surpass, or are equivalent to, the iPhone 5 and the iPad 3
respectively. Apple has no more products to grow into - outside of Aug reality
glasses - where they'll just get squeezed again and Google already has the
lead.

Apple's strength is not, and never was, in their hardware. It was software -
and it is now commodity. Apple is the new Microsoft.

Linux kills everything that cannot differentiate.

~~~
RShiki
"Linux kills everything that cannot differentiate."

Yeah, and Windows differentiated by offering an insane level of backward
compatibility which makes both developers happy (they don't have to maintain
and patch their apps as much) and users who don't have to lose their favorite
piece of software, which is why Linux has never overtaken the desktop. Windows
runs the apps people want : MS Office, Photoshop... the mac also runs some of
those but you can see how fickle backward compatibility is with Apple. You can
install Windows 8 on the early macintels, you can't install Mac OS X Mountain
Lion on those. MS offers better support for older Apple hardware than Apple
themselves.

Apple is not going to survive android on the long term unless they truly
manage to turn the iPhone into a fashion statement and multiply their effort
to make it look like jewelry. Apple revenue depends entirely on the iPad and
iPhone nowadays, Mac aren't making them any money. Unlike Windows, people
don't have any sort of long term, or big in $ investment in mobile software.
Transitioning from iOS to Android is not like going from Windows to Linux and
losing Office, Photoshop, thousands of dollars worth of a game library built
over a decade..

~~~
confluence
Backward compatibility is for chumps. If you hide behind that and inertia in
tech you will be replaced.

Everything will run in the cloud on the latest tech and whatever software you
want will be streamed to you direct. And those servers will run on Linux.

------
snowwrestler
The excitement over voice recognition threatens to obscure the most important
breakthrough in Siri, which is that Siri tracks conversational context. For
example with Siri you can have this interaction:

Me: Will it be cold tomorrow? Siri: Yes, the low temperature will be 42
degrees. Me: What about Friday? Siri: Looking better. The low temperature will
be 58 degrees. (exact working paraphrased)

Try this series of questions in the new Google search app. The first gives me
a wiki.answers.com page as the top result, the second a Woody Allen quote.

Or try it on any conversation bot. Using pronouns to obscure the topic of
conversation has always been the best way to reveal the stupid machine
underneath. Siri is a little less stupid.

Google voice search cannot do this because it is fundamentally transactional--
you ask one question, get one answer. It is just another interface to their
web search, albeit one with seemingly great voice recognition.

Siri is not designed primarily as a search engine. It is designed to be a
personal assistant and is optimized to accomplish tasks and answers certain
questions in the process of doing so.

~~~
jonknee
I had I problem asking weather questions to Google. I asked "will it be cold
tomorrow" and got back the forecasts temp for tomorrow in my location. And a
whole lot faster than Siri (which took me three tries to get anything about
weather returned). You have to provide contxt every time with Googl, but
that's a very small thing in my opinion and since it just works still ends up
being faster.

------
wisty
No surprise. As far as I can tell, Scott Forstall was the (post-Steve)
executive who wanted to go to war with Google. He was in charge of Siri (Apple
Search) and Maps. The minute he's canned, Google and Apple are suddenly best
friends (though I'll expect Apple will continue trying to sue Android out of
existence).

Google wants its apps on iOS, as they mostly care about ad revenue (not the
few bucks they might make on Nexus, which is just one of many Android brands).
Google has always been platform agnostic. Apple wants Google (Android) dead,
but simply doesn't have the ability to beat Google at search.

Scott Forstall probably wanted Apple to create a massive data division, so
they could go toe to toe with Google on search, and hope that people would
still want iOS even if Google was locked out. I'm guessing the other execs
were beginning to question this strategy - Google can make a "good enough"
mobile OS better than Apple can make a "good enough" search engine and mapping
platform. It's far better to let Google own search, and focus on doing what
Apple does best.

~~~
pkulak
\-- Google can make a "good enough" mobile OS better than Apple can make a
"good enough" search engine and mapping platform.

I think this is the heart of it right now. A "good enough" OS for Google has a
bit of scroll jank and some inconsistent UI elements. "Good enough" maps for
Apple will get you lost and cause you actual trouble.

------
timothya
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.

~~~
baddox
The voice recognition is shockingly fast. It's printing words on screen as I'm
saying the next word. Any idea if that's being done client side?

~~~
drpancake
I distinctly remember Google talking about them having achieved client-side
voice recognition at the last I/O, but I can't find anything about it now.

~~~
pkulak
They did, but I think performance is degraded when there's no connection. When
there is a connection, it's some kind of crazy hybrid approach.

------
gfodor
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.

~~~
potatolicious
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.

~~~
gfodor
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.

~~~
rimantas

      > 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.

~~~
gfodor
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.

~~~
wisty
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).

------
k-mcgrady
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.

~~~
barrkel
_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.

~~~
k-mcgrady
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.

------
ChuckMcM
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.

------
kcoop
Wow, wow, wow.

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.

~~~
myko
Though in this case Google has Apple beat on style as well. The Siri
presentation looks extremely lacking next to Voice Search.

------
mburshteyn
"Siri, open the Google Search App."

~~~
0_o
"Sorry, I can't help you with that"

------
notlisted
Of note: this same "type it as you speak" feature, also using Google's voice
recognition, is available on Android phones using the Swiftkey keyboard
replacement, which means it will work whenever text input is available, be it
facebook, a text, an email etc. It works so well my mind was blown and I
actually use it.

Apple of course does not allow keyboard replacement either, so we're all stuck
with the crappy voice recognition in iDevices (I have several, statement of
fact, not fanboy-ism)

~~~
notlisted
One refinement... the best part of the SwiftKey implementation is support for
multiple languages at the same time. Switch input language, two clicks, and it
will work. Apple doesn't allow you to switch language context (keyboard, yes,
voice input, no).

------
siglesias
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.

~~~
jemfinch
> This is the job of the OS.

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.

~~~
siglesias
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.

~~~
keeperofdakeys
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.

------
koof
Heavily considering Android now after this.

~~~
nachteilig
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!

~~~
ryanhuff
Isn't the LTE issue overblown?

~~~
pja
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.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>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.

------
mikebo
Ask it "how much wood would a woodchuck chuck ... " and prepare to laugh.

~~~
flomo
Just getting a generic web search, what am I missing?

~~~
mortuus
you have to say the whole line (including the 'if a woodchuck could chuck
would' piece)

------
hnriot
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!

------
jpalomaki
Haven't yet tried on iOS, but on Android I was pretty amazed when I realized
their voice search actually recognized some pretty complex words spoken in
Finnish. And the market share or our language is pretty small (around ~6M
speakers).

I believe Google must be doing something right on the voice frontier when they
can accomplish things like this. They must have some pretty efficient methods
for teaching the system new languages.

------
mtgx
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.

------
vitalique
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.

~~~
bmcmahan
The Google search app on Windows 8 has this

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Also happens to be one of the only apps in the store that's only available on
x86.

------
modarts
Surprised no one's mentioned the goggles search. I was pretty blown away to
maximize an application on my desktop, snap a picture and have it recognize it
(down to the version number, for Outlook 2010)

~~~
eligos
you must try the sudoku thing

------
_djo_
This is awesome.

Note for non-Americans: The app only speaks results back if your selected
voice search app is 'English (US)'.

~~~
Synaesthesia
Still doesn't speak back to me

~~~
_djo_
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.

------
lobster45
This may be a stupid question, but is there an equivalent Android app?

~~~
mbrubeck
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.

~~~
myko
And on phones with soft buttons from anywhere just by swiping upwards from the
soft buttons.

------
nachteilig
Wow, this is fantastic. Eddy Cue has a tough road ahead getting Siri even to
this level, I think.

Google, please release your maps app for iOS now!

~~~
r00fus
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.

------
6ren
The inflection is nice, especially at the end, sometimes falling, sometimes
rising. I guess this isn't yet available on desktop voice search?

Since google knows so much about me, can I say:

\- what movie should I see? \- book tickets \- mark the route to the cinema

to eventually (with a self-driving car):

\- take me out to the movies, google

------
kristofferR
It's weird that this is avaliable on iOS, but not on Android yet.

Even if you're lucky enough to live in the US and be able to use Google Now
(the voice search like in this iOS and Siri) you won't have the same features
available. If you, God forbid, change your language away from US English into
something like horrible UK English the features are disabled and just becomes
dictation instead.

I'm sorry about being a little bit annoyed, but I can't understand at all why
Google put in place extremely stupid restrictions of features requiring their
users to hex-edit their binaries in order to get access to the availible
features. It's moronic.

~~~
OriginalSyn
What features are available in the iOS voice search that aren't in Google Now?
I live in Canada and every example in the video I can do on my gnexus.

------
leberwurstsaft
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.

------
mark_l_watson
Very cool. I was pissed that Siri was not available for my iPad 2 but this
works well. Nice!

------
equark
Impressively fast. Is the voice recognition being done exclusively on Google's
servers or is there a local component?

~~~
TrevorJ
With as fast as it's working I would be shocked if a chunk of it wasn't being
done locally. I think the refinement may be server side (IE: looking at the
words in context against popular search strings to see if it may have miss-
interpreted a word in the search string).

------
le_isms
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.

~~~
shasta
Except it seems to retroactively change its guess of what you said earlier
based on what you said later.

------
sherwin
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.

~~~
kordless
I'm seriously thinking about switching, but the number of phones and features
is a bit confusing.

~~~
Macha
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.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
The Galaxy Nexus had an awful screen though. Not sure about the Nexus 4.

~~~
pkulak
The Nexus 4 has a 320 ppi IPS display. From what I've heard, it's the best
you'll find on any phone right now. No more pentile AMOLED.

------
bobbles
Am I doing something wrong? It plays the beep noises even if I have my phone
set to silent (iPhone 4S).

I know that Siri works this way as well (which I also find irritating). Why
won't it obey my settings!

------
metatronscube
I think its terrible, perhaps its just my Scottish accent which is probably
one of the harder English speaking languages to account for however its
especially terrible. Siri doesn't have very many problems with me, but the
Google services on my iphone and now guffed Nexus 7 were really terrible to
the point it was embarrassing how inaccurate it was.

I use Siri a lot, and its powerful because it actually feels par of the phone.
I can actually do useful things with it.

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smackfu
I'm surprised it still "misses" on a lot of phrasings and sends the search to
Google which is generally useless since Google loses the context. Especially
phrasings that Siri advertises as working.

"how far is it to X" doesn't work in Google but works in Siri. "how did
(sports team) do" doesn't work in Google but works in Siri. "what movies are
playing" works but "where is Argo playing" doesn't. And this is just weird
because "where is Looper playing" works.

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saddino
Now if Google really wants to finish the job and stick a fork in Siri, they
should make a developer SDK available so other iOS apps can use this
technology. Right now, the only ad hoc speech-to-text service available is
Nuance's (which yes, powers, Siri) but the API rate restrictions (and pricing
tiers) make it a much less than satisfactory option.

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akosner
My take on Google Voice Search vs. Siri, including the mystery of the missing
NHL standings data.
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/10/31/google-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/10/31/google-
releases-voice-search-for-ios-just-in-time-to-show-siri-up-on-hurricane-
sandy/)

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Osmium
Irritating how the app doesn't let you clear your search terms. You can only
delete a search term by entering a new one, even with "search history"
disabled. Really tweaks my OCD sense.

Great app technically though. Hopefully this'll push Apple to make Siri more
responsive.

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poundy
It does not read the results back to me. Is there something wrong with my
settings?

~~~
super_mario
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.

~~~
poundy
I tried 15% of 51 and also queries like what is the population of Tokyo
similar to the demo. It does not seem to want to speak the results back.

~~~
rasmusrygaard
Which phone do you have? I suspect this could be disabled on older iPhones. I
have a 4 and I don't get any voice feedback.

~~~
super_mario
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.

~~~
RenierZA
Interesting.

I 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.

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Achshar
I want this for my gingerbread phone. I am on mercy of Motorola for update and
they won't give it. So now google can at least update the voice search app in
my phone to this. hopefully.

~~~
tkahn6
> I am on mercy of Motorola for update and they won't give it.

I know that feel bro. That's why I dumped my Samsung Droid Charge and got an
iPhone 5.

So frustrated not getting any updates.

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khangtoh
It's great and a blackeye to Apple because Google showed that it can deliver
the same thing that Apple has failed to by making Siri only available to
iPhone4S and above.

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sbochins
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!!!"

------
mcrider
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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chj
If this is the same one on android, I don't see where the excitement comes
from.

I love their image search though. Take a picture of painting, show you a lot
of info.

------
senthilnayagam
It can recognise my Indian English accent and feels instantaneous , moved this
app to my home screen

Now apple need to catchup on Siri

------
joshfraser
A few fun things to ask:

"Who made you?", "Tell me a joke?", "Who am I?", "Will you marry me?"

~~~
fudge
Some years ago, I was showing of my Nexus One to my sister, and she was so
impressed with the voice to text that she exclaimed "Wow! Can Google really do
that?". The resulting text from Google was "Yes we can. Google is amazing.
:-)"

Never been able to reproduce it though.

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dapvincent
I've been waiting for this feature since I upgraded to an iPhone...

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drivebyacct2
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.

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ecliptic
This is great and I will use it right up until it starts showing ads. I really
hope Google can find another income stream because ads are a deal breaker for
me. The first time Google maps dropped two pins on a location search, one an
ad, was the last time I used Google maps.

