Janmike34 posted a nicely produced concept video for how Nuance's voice recognition could be integrated into iOS 5. In essence, text fields can become speech recognition fields by tapping and holding on text fields. This functionality can be offered to 3rd party applications as well using the standard iOS text field.
While a nicely produced video, it's not more impressive than what Google's Android has, nor is it even more impressive than the technology we've known Apple has acquired:
Apple acquired Siri in April 2010. Steve Jobs has said that Siri's acquisition was for their artificial intelligence technology. Nuance is the company that powered Siri's speech recognition, so it's no surprise that Apple is negotiating with Nuance for use of their technology in iOS 5.
[via Reddit]
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Yeah I like the vid. However what would make the interface much better, and the reason for it happening, would be for complete control and hands-free ability - having to tap something on the screen defeats the purpose, for instance if you're driving or cooking or in the bathroom or something and you can't/don't want to touch the phone, you should be able to control it completely by voice (like the Knowledge Navigator, or current and actually in use Kinect where you simply say "Xbox ..." followed by the command). If your hands are dirty while cooking and you don't want olive oil or flower do get on/in your iOS device, and you need more information you could say "iPad, next page" or "iPad, what is the next step in the cooking process" or if you get a text you can say "iPhone, read text" and then "iPhone ignore" or "iPhone reply with: ..." and then say the message you want the iPhone to type and send to them while you're still stirring or transferring or coating your food.
I thought about doing so with my current video, but decided not to develop it that way for a few reasons.
My concept originally began with how Mac OS X's speech recognition can function you can tell the OS to constantly listen using the microphone for a keyword or phrase. Upon hearing that, the OS would then act accordingly to the command stated after the keyword.
The reason why I didn't do this is because of 1) battery life? 2) privacy concerns. I'm sure if I posted a video of such, many of the comments would discuss how the iPhone is always listening...wherever you go. A computer is stationary, but everyone carries their phone everywhere. And with that, the phone is always listening. 3) Many people might have their default keyword be "iPhone". How many people have iPhone's now? I say the word iPhone on my university's bus, and everyone's phone would then ring that familiar sound.
Of course, I have gotten this kind of feedback a lot (re: much more developed speech recognition that should listen in and act accordingly). In the next few days, look out for another video by me that demonstrates such. :)
But as others have said you need a better way to activate voice control. My mobile 10 years ago would listen for a key phrase and then activate voice dialling, that would be great.
Don't forget to check out my other concept videos on my YouTube channel. More coming soon!
Got an idea? Shoot me a message on YouTube!