Why does Siri matter? Google's voice-search does the same stuff

[thomsbrain]

Just installed Google's voice-search update today on my 1st-gen Droid. It has all the practical functions of Apple's Siri, including one-touch text/email, punctuation, user-specific auto-learn, etc. It doesn't speak back to you, but instead just does what you told it to do, so you don't have to wait around and wait for it tell you what it is planning on doing. Ok, so it doesn't have existentialist canned auto-responses to stupid questions, but I finished playing with Dr. Sbaitso back in the SoundBlaster 16 days.

Remind me why Siri matters?

 

[Ns1]

http://searchengineland.com/head-to-head-siri-vs-google-voice-actions-96998

 

[thomsbrain]

because Siri can do things other than search?

Was I not clear? The google version does all the stuff Siri does, using the same voice commands. You can trigger them side by side and talk to them at the same time, and they will both send the same text message or get the same directions or whatever else you want.

Edit: Sorry, I didn't even think of the website.

 

[Bateluer]

Shrug, its an Apple product. I've been using Google's voice actions since my Droid 1 days and most of my Thunderbolt ownership. Don't use it that often, but it does pretty much everything Siri does but without the automated female voice.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Yeah, speaking as an Android user who isn't fond of Apple, Google voice search is nothing compared to Siri. I understand it can't work as slick as it looks in the ads, but even so, it does a lot more. Google voice search is a novelty more than anything; it's almost useless in real life.

 

[thomsbrain]

Yeah, speaking as an Android user who isn't fond of Apple, Google voice search is nothing compared to Siri. I understand it can't work as slick as it looks in the ads, but even so, it does a lot more. Google voice search is a novelty more than anything; it's almost useless in real life.

Ok, what does it do that you can't do on Android? I'm not trying to argue, I actually want to know since my next phone will either be a Droid Bionic or an iphone4s.

 

[Bateluer]

Yeah, speaking as an Android user who isn't fond of Apple, Google voice search is nothing compared to Siri. I understand it can't work as slick as it looks in the ads, but even so, it does a lot more. Google voice search is a novelty more than anything; it's almost useless in real life.

Its far more than search. You can give voice commands to open certain apps, transcribe emails/texts/IM, input addresses in Navigation, etc. Everything Siri does, but in fewer words spoken by the human.

I understand the rose colored blinders that people have on with Apple products though. In a few years, iFans will be claiming that Apple invented voice interaction and Apple lawyers will be suing Star Trek over the Computer and Marvel Comics over Jarvis.

 

[Ns1]

..

 

[cheezy321]

Ok, what does it do that you can't do on Android? I'm not trying to argue, I actually want to know since my next phone will either be a Droid Bionic or an iphone4s.

-Geo-fenced reminders
-Local business searches around you
-Setting calendar events and making sure they don't collide with events you have already created.
-Finding places to bury a dead body

 

[zinfamous]

Ok, what does it do that you can't do on Android? I'm not trying to argue, I actually want to know since my next phone will either be a Droid Bionic or an iphone4s.

Droid Bionic is dead already.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Remind me why Siri matters?

Because it learns from bad accent. You can actually manually "train" Siri to recognize arbitrary phrases and sounds as something meaningful. It's not like "auto-learn" where it automatically adjusts to you, you can actually force it to interpret you the way you want.

So I can say "tell my girlfriend that I am running late", and Siri would know that I mean to say "send a text to Susie Northwin with the content 'I'm running late'". I can also say "urg, traffic sucks", or "sorry, baby!", and it'll still understand it to be the same as the phrase before.

Also it can do direct computation with the Wolfram Alpha engine so I can say any calculation I want, such as "what is the total distance of ten feet plus two meters?", and it'll pop up a result for me.

It might not be a practical feature to use during meetings or at a library, but it's tremendously more useful than Google Voice Search due to the feedback, and that's extremely important in situations where you just can't look at the screen for more than a few seconds. Situations like when you are driving.

 

[zinfamous]

So I can say "tell my girlfriend that I am running late", and Siri would know that I mean to say "send a text to Susie Northwin with the content 'I'm running late'". I can also say "urg, traffic sucks", or "sorry, baby!", and it'll still understand it to be the same as the phrase before.

Siri: Sorry Susie, I already have a date.



This website is going to be hilarious once the content starts arriving.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Siri: Sorry Susie, I already have a date.

Fortunately it does read the text back before it sends (you just gotta say yes). Otherwise that would be a disaster.

 

[soccerballtux]

Just installed Google's voice-search update today on my 1st-gen Droid. It has all the practical functions of Apple's Siri, including one-touch text/email, punctuation, user-specific auto-learn, etc. It doesn't speak back to you, but instead just does what you told it to do, so you don't have to wait around and wait for it tell you what it is planning on doing. Ok, so it doesn't have existentialist canned auto-responses to stupid questions, but I finished playing with Dr. Sbaitso back in the SoundBlaster 16 days.

Remind me why Siri matters?

it still has that obnoxious crackly voice.

 

[pm]

So I've played a fair bit with Siri on an iPhone 4S and Google Voice on a Samsung Galaxy S2. I like to think I'm reasonably objective - I have several friends who work for Apple and friends at Google. I think people being over-the-top fans for technology companies that they don't actually work for is actually a bit crazy...

That said, Siri has the advantage. In terms of searching they are similar. I thought they both did a great job and I didn't see many mistakes in either one. The results from both were good. I sent one text message with Google Voice and I composed an email with Siri and that went fine on both. They both didn't make a single mistake - although the text was very short - and I was impressed with both.

So for these, I thought they were equivalent, but Siri can do a couple of other things.

Siri can do location based alerts - and this could be really useful while driving. I particularly think the "location-based alerts like "Alert me when I get home to take out the garbage" and then when it sees you are home, you get an alert. It's really neat (and a bit creepy) and also really useful. And the whole calendar thing is equally useful and Google Voice can't do that either. And Siri will often read you the answer, while Google Voice navigates you to a webpage. Since I'm all about using this in a car, speaking the answer back is thus safer (and cooler) than taking me to a webpage.



The big use that I see for both is driving. I have bluetooth in my car and I have a button to activate it. I can hit the button and talk to my phone and have it do things and thus I don't need to mess with my phone while I'm trying to drive. I have literally almost killed myself texting while driving - in fact one time I almost drove off the onramp of a bridge and it was a very close thing. I personally spend a fair amount driving and I personally have a horribly bad, really stupid habit of messing with my phone while driving. I also have a mandatory screen unlock on my phone (company's security policy) and so even simple things require a whole bunch of steps. I also ride my bicycle a lot - during warmer months I usually ride over 80 miles per week. So, again, getting out a phone and punching in a big long passcode and then typing something while riding a bicycle is both hard and somewhat suicidal.

People can say Siri is silly, and that talking to your phone is stupid, and that people have been drinking way too much Apple kool-aide to be excited about Siri but from my perspective both Siri and Google Voice have the potential to make my life safer (no more texting while driving) and easier, and I think everyone needs to judge for themselves how useful these things are. I think anything that reduces texting while driving is a Good Thing (tm) - whether this is Google Voice or Siri. But of the two, I think Siri is the better of the two only because you can do a few more things that I actually want to do with it and it will reply in voice as well.... although I'm certain that in less than 9 months, Google Voice will be able to do these things too.

 

[Red Storm]

Siri can do location based alerts - and this could be really useful while driving. I particularly think the "location-based alerts like "Alert me when I get home to take out the garbage" and then when it sees you are home, you get an alert.

Interesting, but wouldn't your GPS have to always be on for this to work?

Also, your company's security policy of using a lock screen doesn't make much sense when you can apparently bypass that with your bluetooth.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

-Geo-fenced reminders

I am amazed iPhone owners find that impressive. Android has had Tasker for years now that among other things makes iOS's geo fencing look downright primitive.

 

[Pliablemoose]

I am amazed at how tech savvy peeps here are missing the obvious...

Don’t think of Siri as just a voice UI. Rather, think of it as the gatekeeper to natural language searching of diverse databases and search engines that Apple will link to an ad model that will eventually make Apple the third major search company in the world.

Look for Apple to buy companies like Yelp, Open Table, IMDB, Rotten Tomato, etc... They have the cash....

 

[pm]

Interesting, but wouldn't your GPS have to always be on for this to work?

Yeah, I guess it would... I don't know. I didn't spend enough time with it but you have to presume that it uses either your home WiFi or GPS to figure out where you are. I presume your concern is the battery? Yeah, it would be interesting to figure out how much battery time this costs.

Also, your company's security policy of using a lock screen doesn't make much sense when you can apparently bypass that with your bluetooth.

Yeah, some other guys at work have mentioned this. You can disable Siri so that it requires a passcode unlock and it's possible - maybe even probable - that my company will update their security policy to do this. I hope not. Although I don't have a 4S so this wouldn't affect me.

That said, my counter-arguement is what can you do with Siri that's a security risk? You can add calendar entries, and spoof email and texts... the email spoofing is the biggest issue... but it's not that big a deal in my opinion. The company's primary security concern - I think - is the reading of calendar entries and reading of emails and those - I think - can't be done with Siri. The company's policy already has auto-wipe enabled so they can nuke email and calendaring remotely... they can actually factory reset the whole phone remotely... I guess I'll see... I think you are right though and there's a good chance Siri will require a passcode unlock to be used which will ruin one of my main uses for it - even though I don't have it anyway.

 

[pm]

I am amazed iPhone owners find that impressive. Android has had Tasker for years now that among other things makes iOS's geo fencing look downright primitive.

Tasker works with voice? I downloaded the 7 day trial version and I'm looking at it right now. How do you enable voice on it?

Edit: ok, I think I see it (you set up a context using the Google Voice Search app?). You may be right about the power of this thing... I can see that it can do a lot, but it's also confusing.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

I am amazed at how tech savvy peeps here are missing the obvious...



Look for Apple to buy companies like Yelp, Open Table, IMDB, Rotten Tomato, etc... They have the cash....

You can check IMDB off your list as it's owned by Amazon.

 

[trmiv]

Yeah, I guess it would... I don't know. I didn't spend enough time with it but you have to presume that it uses either your home WiFi or GPS to figure out where you are. I presume your concern is the battery? Yeah, it would be interesting to figure out how much battery time this costs.

I had a geofencing reminder that I forgot to dismiss that ran for a couple of days. It actually had the GPS icon running the entire time, and I didn't notice a huge impact on battery life.

 

[Mopetar]

Much like many other things that Apple has done, they weren't the first, but they made it easy for the masses and told them that this was something that they could have and that it would be easy for them.

Other companies have been doing it for longer than even Google has been at it, but how many of them provided a polished experience that they were able to communicate to end users? I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Siri sees more use through the few weeks of iPhone sales than Google sees through all of its Android devices.

A lot of people think it's enough to make something cool. It isn't. It's not even enough to make something cool that doesn't suck in terms of execution. You have to let people know about it too. Look at the newest iPhone commercials. They're less about the iPhone and more about Siri. It's a thirty second ad for a new feature. When's the last time you've seen an Android phone ad that's anywhere near as focused? The last one I saw was about being cool and hip with your awesome phone, but really didn't tell me what I could do with it, just that having it would somehow make my life more rad.

Hell, last year's iPhone commercials were entirely about Face Time. The iPhone ads haven't been about the iPhone for a while now. Recently they've always focused on how you can use the device to somehow enhance your life. Apple realizes that a lot of people still think of computers as some kind of magic box. Even most of the younger generation that has grown up with them don't really have a good understanding of how they work and won't stray too far beyond the bounds of what they already know.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Tasker works with voice? I downloaded the 7 day trial version and I'm looking at it right now. How do you enable voice on it?

Edit: ok, I think I see it (you set up a context using the Google Voice Search app?). You may be right about the power of this thing... I can see that it can do a lot, but it's also confusing.

Yeah, I have never tried it with voice commands myself but given how tasker works it seems to be possible.

I will admit that Tasker may not be the simplest app out there but there are basically no limits to what it is capable of. IMO it is a must have app for any power user.

If you want to see some examples of profiles for Tasker check out it's wiki, they have a lot of cool pre made profiles you can download.

 

[runawayprisoner]

I honestly have never tired it with voice but having the ability to automate any aspect of your phone based on location, time, the phones orientation etc is far more useful than just reminding you based on location even if it does not use voice input to accomplish it. That said it should be possible to use voice commands with tasker and it is something I will have to try.

Too much messing around.

It's quite simple to say "Remind me to return the books when I get home" while holding down a single button.

I did try Tasker once, and while I liked the customization, there were simply way too many things to set up for it to work right. That said, it's still useful for ridiculous things such as setting up notifications so they show on widgets, or setting up system parameters based on time and location, such as screen brightness settings, and so on.