10/09/2008, 4:30pm, EDT
Thursday, October 9th
Voice commands coming to iPhone, iPod touch?
Apple may be seeking to introduce voice recognition as a standard option with iPhones, iPods or even the Apple TV, a new patent application suggests. Published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office, the filing concentrates on the concept of an iPhone supporting the technology, but notes that it could be applied to other devices as well. They key addition to Apple's hardware would be the presence of a "voice-to-command analyzer," which would determine whether audio is meaningless or represents an action request. This would save other processors the burden of deciphering speech.
After an initial sorting, recognized commands would trigger a macro manager, executing actions from a predetermined library. Some suggested commands could include "play irreplaceable," where "irreplaceable" would be the name of either a song or a playlist. Voices could also simply trigger the name of a menu or other context-sensitive command, such as "tell" within a calendar app, which could be used to message all of the listed contacts for an event.
More iPhone-specific commands might involve controlling the camera, or choosing how to deal with voicemail or incoming calls. On devices similar to an Apple TV, users might have to make use of a separate microphone, such as that on a headset; this could however be used to pass commands along to another portable device, with a speaker included somewhere in the pathway to provide feedback.
Notably, unofficial voice recognition is already provided on the iPhone, by apps such as Vocalia.
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Cool...
Cool, can't wait to get an iPhone! :)
hi
good news
As long as there...
is an option to turn it on or off. I don't want the devices to be based solely on voice input. Say if you were in a quiet place or you have a sore throat. Otherwise I think it would be a fine idea for alternative control.
Agree with Odo
Every handheld I've ever owned that had a voice command capability, that capability has been a complete falure. My iPaq could only accept the command "power off".. yes, really. My current Nokia phone doesn't have an option to turn voice off completely... the best you can do is not select any button as the voice button. Unfortunately, my bluetooth headset always sends the "voice" command when you tap the button... and has no way to turn that off either... I guess that's left up to the phone. But even if I change ALL the voice commands to empty it will still try to voice-dial names from my phonebook. Result... I just don't use the headset: it was a complete waste of money, just because of voice commands.