I think I’ve found a killer feature in the Android operating system, voice commands. First let me clarify that Android is the first operating system I’ve ever used that has voice recognition that actually works. I’d say the voice recognition software on Android is accurate with what I say roughly 90% of the time. Yes I realize 10% rate of failure is pretty big but honestly for voice recognition it’s pretty friggin’ phenomenal.
Voice commands are activated on the Evo 4G by holding down the search button. When held down a little dialog box will appear asking you to speak your command and the phone will act from there. My two favorite commands are “direction to” and “send text.” If you say, “direction to 1234 South North Street Podunk Minnesota” the phone will open Google Maps and plot directions from your current location to 1234 South North Street Podunk, MN.
The “send text” command works in the same fashion. When you say, “send text to Fictional Person I’ll be there in five minutes period” the phone will display a text message to Fiction Person that says, “I’ll be there in five minutes.” All you have to do after that is tap the send button and away it goes.
That’s one thing you have to realize, punctuation must be spoken. The speech recognition can’t predict when you want to add a period or question mark so you have to speak them. It’s kind of a pain in you want the work period written out but it works correctly nine times out of ten.
I’m simply blown away by the voice command feature and how well it works.