Google adds voice search to iPhone app

by Julian Prokaza
on Fri 14 Nov 2008 1 Comment

Google will soon update its iPhone tool, Google Mobile App, to include the ability to perform searches using speech recognition.

In other words, iPhone users will no longer need to tap at the handset’s on-screen keyboard in order to execute Google searches: just launch Google Mobile App, speak into the microphone and a recording of your voice will be sent to Google’s servers and translated into a search query. Well, that’s the theory, at least.

The New York Times was first to report on the advance today. However, the Google Mobile Blog team in fact posted a video about the update to Mobile App on YouTube a couple of days ago. More, including that video, after the cut.

Speaking in the below YouTube video, Google engineer Mike LeBeau, runs through a demonstration of how the speech-recognition feature works. There’s no great surprise – speak, translate, search results – though the option to focus searches on your current vicinity using the iPhone’s location services is a nifty touch. It also employs the iPhone's accelerometer as a prompt to start recording: an arm sweep up to the ear is apparently sufficient to get Google Mobile App listening.

The video gives no clue as to when the revised Google Mobile App will actually appear on the App Store. However, the New York Times reports that Google is expected to let it loose today.

[via New York Times]

Originally published on www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk, now incorporated into Broadband Genie
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Comments

  • neutral

    by Adam at 03:54 on 16 Nov 2008Report abuse

    People don't do research on an iphone. They do it on their desktop or notebook or UMPC. I found some voice recognition software named Tazti speech recognition that actually is a free download and performs voice searches of Google, Yahoo, MSN, Wikipedia, Amazon, eBay and many other websites. It also lets me log into and navigate Facebook and Myspace by talking to my PC. It really works well.

    Here's their youtube demo video: http://www.youtube.com/w

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