Siri, Google One, Speaktoit Assistant, Sherpa: do you use a voice activated assistant on your phone to do things like search, send texts, take notes and open other apps?
How often do you use this?
Which one do you use and what features do you like?
In what situations do you use it.
Does it annoy people in elevators? :P
What features do you use most?
Is all this verbal stuff just a flash in the pan or is it the future in mobile?
Never
I think there is not much future in this unless the mobile devices learn to just communicate via thoughts - too many privacy concerns voicing my commands to my mobile in public
But then, we get into really really scary shit like thoughts getting intercepted...
I know what you're thinking ;D
But hmmm: as a rule, I think people bossing their phones around in public (or even in private) look/sound like twonks.
No, they dont get my Danish Viking accent. I could do it in English however, but no.
>Google One
This should be Google Now. Sorry about the mistake.
Also have you tried putting an assistant on a tablet? Advantage, you feel less self conscious if you are alone or if your family is around they already know you are weird. ;D
>they dont get my Danish Viking accent
they're really bad at understanding Scottish accents too. Not all too different from people in that respect
I use Siri for sending quick remind-myself-about-something emails to Wunderlist (mostly) or Evernote (sometimes).
I don't use it for much else.
The only one I use now and again is Xbox Kinect. But then that's normally until I've found the controller
Voice search on Google Maps Navigation, but that's it.
I walk around a lot with my phone in my pocket or backpack, but with my headphones (with built-in mic) plugged in. I find myself using Siri to make phone calls, read text messages, and occasionally play music. At home I use it a lot to set the countdown timer so I don't burn my meat on the BBQ.
I try to use Siri when nobody else is nearby.
In Japan iPhone has substantial market share. I have never seen a Japanese person use Siri in the wild. I did see some video demos of Japanese using Siri when it was first released...but that's it. Nobody uses any form of voice control here...or they're just as embarrassed as me and they do it surreptitiously.
>Wunderlist
Thanks for that tip buckworks, that looks interesting.
I can see using voice on a long car trip. It would be great to dictate notes and organize to do's while driving.
When I had an iPhone I never used Siri. Now I'm testing Google Now - which does Not talk to you, and Speaktoit Assistant and Sherpa.
Google Now actually complements most other assistants. It tries to learn your routine, anticipate information you might need and then silently serve up a card with that info. So for example, it can learn your commute to work and will serve up cards showing the weather and traffic on your normal route and suggesting alternative routes for any blockages, all without being asked. Nice.
But Google Now does lead you into depending on more Google services, plus its beaming all this info about you back to the Mothership and Creepy Eric.
Speaktoit has an avatar. It digs up info from many sources like Siri, although the backbone is Google search. It is trying to work with third party apps which is good so it is not all one companies walled garden. For instance I can dictate notes to Evernote. Neat feature is when you first activate it in the morning it asked if you want your morning briefing. It then tells you time, weather, your calendar appointments for the day, reminders, and basic news headlines all of which is great when you are busy and traveling.
Sherpa does some basic tasks. Nice clean interface. Not as sophisticated as the other two but it works although I need to test it more. It let's you chose between Google or Bing for a search engine which is nice and something Speaktoit needs.
>do you use a voice activated assistant on your phone
I know my phone has one, because it's always popping up offering to help me if I'll just take time to set it up when I hit the wrong button somewhere... but I've never actually bothered to learn what it does.
>sending quick remind-myself-about-something emails
That's probably the one thing I should figure out (used to use an MP3 recorder for same), but it actually works better for me to enter straight into Wunderlist.
>Wunderlist
It completely blew away my in-laws when I was at their house in Minnesota on my way home and I explained to them Theresa had updated my shopping list five minutes earlier to pick up supplies in town on my way home.
Quoteto enter straight into Wunderlist
Siri can do that. Dig up your Wunderlist email address and enter that email as one of the contacts on your device.
Then you can tell Siri "Email: Wunder" or whatever you name that contact, and the words you speak into the email subject will land in your Wunderlist inbox as a single list item. You might need to move it, add to it, tidy up spelling, etc, but at least the idea/info is captured for later perusal.
You can do this with Evernote, RememberTheMilk and likely several others.
QuoteThanks for that tip buckworks
I in turn owe thanks to Ergophobe because I discovered Wunderlist when he mentioned it a few months ago. Wunderlist is a good fit for how my brain works. :)
>>words you speak into the email subject
I guess my point was that this won't work when I'm offline, which is 90% the time that I have my phone with me. So if I enter it into Wunderlist, it's there and I can check it off. Whereas if I do the email thing, it won't get added to Wunderlist until I get a connection and the email gets sent and Wunderlist receives and synchs. So I don't think it's a good fit for me (and in any case, I have an Android, so I would be using some other voice thing, not Siri).
>>thanks to Ergophobe
My nascent senility sinks in.... no memory of that, but glad it's working for you. I have to say that it's the first TO DO app that has ever worked at all for me. So going OT here Bucky, I'll suggest looking into Trello for a project management tool that is sort of like Wunderlist ported to Project Management (though it's much older than WL)