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iSpeak: Voice dialing for iPhone 3G

by Steven Sande Jul 9th 2008 at 7:00AM

fonix speech logoSunday night on the TUAW Talkcast, we were discussing how much fun this week was going to be from the iPhone software perspective. This announcement from Fonix Speech is exactly what we were talking about.

Fonix iSpeak is a voice activation application for the iPhone 3G. There are a couple of operations that you'll be able to accomplish just by speaking a command. You can dial someone by saying a phone number or the name of a person in your Contacts list. You'll also be to whiz through your music library, play a song, or start up a playlist by saying the name of an artist, song, or playlist.

According to Fonix Speech, Fonix iSpeak "includes a run-time engine that sits on the phone allowing users to interact with the personal contents of their Apple iPhone™. Unlike other voice applets that enable voice search of the Internet by sending commands over the airwaves, this client-side application gives users the power of voice interaction with their personal content and eliminates network latency."

There's no word on when the app will actually be available nor is there a price on the website, and the company didn't respond to a phone call. Fonix Speech says that they'll be selling it "directly" and through "traditional Apple distribution channels" -- the App Store, perhaps?

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Sunday night on the TUAW Talkcast, we were discussing how much fun this week was going to be from the iPhone software perspective. This...
 

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Pramod

PLEASE HELP ME....
I got some problem with Fring. After installing Fring application in iPhone and started to call through this application, but it is showing error msg like, "Voice is not available with 3G connection type".
Anybody know about this error?
Please reply soon...
Thanking you in advance.

October 06 2008 at 10:11 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Irrelevant

vaporware...

August 26 2008 at 2:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Seth

I have never dealt with a more horrifically bad application than Fonix voicedial. They're the kind of crap that you *resent* having bundled with a phone.

July 09 2008 at 3:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Prometheus25

This is just silly. Since apps can't run in the background, you'll have to launch this with your finger. Might as well just tap a couple more times and avoid the frustration of voice recognition.

To me, the whole point of voice dialing is so you can dial while the phone stays in your pocket, via headphones, or BT headset. This really needs to be undertaken by Apple, if at all. My suspicion is that they've avoided it because voice dialing always feels "chintzy"--with it forcing you to repeat things and get them exactly the same--especially when you've got a lot of "voice dialable" contacts.

Finally, why would this be limited to iPhone 3G?

July 09 2008 at 10:18 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tracy

I don't know if this would be possible through "official" channels, but...

I know that my bluetooth headset sends some specific signal to my phone when I want to voice dial (tap once, it activatse voice dialing... this works on various phones). Would it be possible to have this signal launch a specific application on the iPhone?

July 09 2008 at 10:04 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jonathan Badeen

Apple needs to make this built in... think about it... i seriously doubt this is going to be able to run in the background which makes it pretty useless. If i have to open up an app to do voice commands the purpose of that app has just been defeated. Voice dialing is the only thing i miss about my Razr

July 09 2008 at 9:34 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Jonathan Badeen's comment
Dave

I think a lot of that particular concern could be addressed if, like in other smart phones, you could assign custom features to some of the hard buttons on the phone. Example, you could make the mute switch activate voice dialing instead of muting, and use a soft switch for muting.

Already built in to the phone is the ability to change the default action for the double tap of the home button....why not allow more options, such as voice dialing via that method?

July 09 2008 at 10:32 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
zsports

All of the reviewers (Pogue, Mossberg, etc.) have been lamenting the lack of MMS and Vocie Dialing. I believe both of these can be handled by 3rd part apps.

July 09 2008 at 9:21 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Hansi

Does this app say the name of the person calling when receiving a call? Most of my old phones have had this feature and it is really useful when using the headphones and having the phone in my pocket

July 09 2008 at 8:04 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Hansi's comment
tom

I have their voice recognition software on my windows mobile phone. Very nice indeed. Look forward to trying it out when I get my iPhone on Friday.

Tom

July 09 2008 at 9:15 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rob

I still find it very hard to believe that the iPhone does NOT have voice dialing built in. Even the cheap $40 cell phones have voice dialing.

How are you supposed to call someone when you are driving? Take your eyes off the road and use the touch screen to dial a number? That is VERY unsafe.

With a regular cell phone you can at least fell the numbers on the phone. You can't do that with the iPhone's touch screen.

I am surprised that no one has sued Apple over creating and selling a phone that is unsafe to use while driving.

July 09 2008 at 8:03 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Rob's comment
Oseary

Think about it. Why would Apple spend the dev $$, when they could have someone else develop the app, and reap a portion of the profits by selling it on the app store?

The same thing goes for picture messaging.

Or am I thinking that Apple is too nice of a corporation to screw their customers like that?

July 09 2008 at 9:15 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Austin Brower

Is this truly for the iPhone 3G or for iPhone software 2.0?

July 09 2008 at 7:40 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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