Voice Assistant Siri vs Vlingo | Voice Action Applications Vlingo vs Siri vs Google Voice Actions
With Apple relying too much on ‘Siri’, to market its new release iPhone 4S, the other voice search and voice command assisted applications that were available in the market have come to prominence. Google Voice Action and Vlingo are two such applications. The Siri referred to an intelligent voice assistant by Apple can understand certain keywords we speak and virtually do everything on the device. ‘Siri’ is capable of scheduling meetings, checking weather, setting timer, sending & reading messages etc. Apple bought Siri recently to integrate it with iOS. Vlingo is another virtual assistant in the market. Basically, it is a voice to text technology with intelligence to listen and act. Vlingo is available for nearly all mobile platforms such as Apple iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows, Symbian etc. Vlingo for Android can be downloaded from the Android Market. It is free application and compatible with devices running Android 2.1 or higher. Vlingo for Android has recently added a new feature called ‘Action Bar’, which offers users to do many activities on the go. Vlingo can work in combination with Google Voice Actions. While these voice search and voice command assisted applications are continuously improving, Siri is tightly integrated to iOS, and sounds more user-friendly.
‘Siri’
‘Siri’ is the voice assistant introduced with iPhone 4S. Most similar applications to ‘Siri’ were activated by voice commands. Such applications were available in the market way before ‘Siri’ was introduced. The interesting feature with ‘Siri’ is its ability to operate interactively. The application actually talks back to the user and creates an interactive experience. However, it is important to note that ‘Siri’ is released as a beta version now.
While the ability to understand voice commands is impressive in ‘Siri’, it is unique that it is capable of understanding location based and context based commands. For an e.g. – when a user ask ‘how far to work from here?’ Siri will understand that ‘here’ is the current location and complete the task accordingly. In another instance, if a user says ‘I feel like eating ice cream’ the application will be proactive and find nearby places where ice cream is available. These searches and activities will be interactive most of the time, which will make the interaction more enjoyable and productive.
‘Siri’ can perform a range of tasks from sending and reading text messages, setting reminders, find directions, is capable of finding information from the web, look up home and work locations of the user, schedule meetings, send email, check weather, find contact details, track stocks, set alarms and more. Do not take our word for it. You can ask this from ‘Siri’, and it will tell you the list of tasks it is capable of doing.
According to Apple, ‘Siri uses the processing power of the A5 chip in iPhone 4S. In order to use ‘Siri’, iPhone 4S needs to be connected to internet and should communicate with servers at Apple. At the moment, ‘Siri’ is capable of understanding and talking multiple languages such as English, French and German. Additional support to languages such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian and Spanish will be available in 2012. Though the above-mentioned languages are supported by ‘Siri’, the accuracy will depend on the accent of the speaker, as well. This is a common limitation to many applications based on voice commands.
‘Siri’ can be used as it is by anyone with an iPhone 4S. There is no need to train the application either. When the user wants the assistance of ‘Siri’, he needs to tap the microphone button on the screen. After two quick beep sounds, the user can ask whatever question necessary, as he is talking to another person.
Vlingo
Vlingo is an application for Apple, Android, Blackberry,Nokia and Window’s Phones, which detect voice and perform action. Basically it’s like giving instructions to Smartphone by voice commands. There are couple of mostly used or defined commands like Text John, Call Mom and Update Facebook Status. But it will be more useful if it can understand normal conversation and react on that.
When you install Vlingo after accepting terms and condition, it will ask for your permission to access your contact for indexing. This indexing increases the accuracy of identification when you speak contact names to call or text. It was explained in the application about this contact indexing and privacy. According to Vlingo they index only contact names not information bound to the name. This is also an optional. If indexing is disabled it will not send the contacts to Vlingo Servers.
Only issue which we have tested is when the Vlingo app is on and if somebody next to you talks also it’s picking up the commands. In the sense there should be voice authentication mechanism before executing the commands. But even if voice authentication is introduced, how long it will take to process all these pre-processes before acting on commands.
External Link: Vlingo.com
Apple introducing Siri on iPhone 4S
Vlingo Voice Assistant – Demo
Vlingo for Android – Demo
Vlingo Incar Driving Solution
Google Voice Actions – Demo