Hi Ricardo and Graham,
I believe that Graham is in the U.K., so Dragon Dictation (still free
for the U.S. and Canada) is not an option for him, hence the possible
interest in Vlingo. I'll cc: this response to the viphone list. I
haven't used this app myself, but I can point you to a few recent
reviews -- one from TUAW and another from a U.K. web site. These, of
course, deal with the app as a whole, and not with the aspect of
VoiceOver accessibility. Since there was extensive discussion of how
Dragon Dictation worked and how best to use it with VoiceOver on the
viphone list, it's reasonable that someone looking at an app with
similar properties would ask if anyone had tried it, and how people
were able to use it.
Quick summary of the reviews is that Vlingo has nice potential
capabilities, but suffers considerably in comparison with Dragon
Dictation as to its voice recognition accuracy, and the potential
strong point of sending updates directly to Twitter or Facebook was
hampered by the need to copy and paste. Additional support features
are available as in-app purchase add-ons. The verdict was to try the
free version, forego the in-app purchases, and to monitor progress.
I'm not sure that this is yet a quality replacement for apps like
Dragon Dictation or Siri.
I'll paste in some relevant excerpts; the reviews contain fuller
descriptions of the Vlingo app's layout, so you can check the links to
read the full posts. The Vlingo URL is:
"Vlingo - Voice App" by Vlingo corporation (free with in-app add-on
purchases):
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vlingo-voice-app/id297214191?mt=8
• TUAW: "Vlingo 2 adds more voice power to iPhone" March 4, 2010
<http://www.tuaw.com/2010/03/04/vlingo-2-adds-more-voice-power-to-iphone/
>
• Know Your Mobile: "Vlingo review" (U.K. site) March 15, 2010
<http://www.knowyourmobile.com/smartphones/smartphoneapps/iphoneapplications/productivity_iphone_apps/440652/vlingo_review.html
>
Excerpt from TUAW Vlingo 2 review:
<begin excerpt>
You can search (Google, Yahoo, or Bing), find map items, dial your
contacts (with optional contact name upload to Vlingo's servers to
improve recognition) and update your Facebook or Twitter status. For
email or SMS, you have two in-app purchase options to extend the free
app's capabilities; it's $6.99 for either SMS or email action, $9.99
for both.
Vlingo has gotten a thorough UI overhaul in this new version, and it's
quite a bit easier to use than it was. The dictation button can be
used in hold-down or tap-to-talk mode, and the app can be set to
recognize speech on launch for maximum speed. You can specify what
action you want by speaking it: "Email Joey, Subject how about some
coffee, Message Got time to meet me at Starbucks? You're buying!" will
create and address an outgoing email for you, all in one step.
That one-stop-shopping for creating emails [to is definitely more
streamlined than Dragon's implementation, and it also exposes one of
Vlingo's handiest features: a record button in the confirmation/edit
screen for each of the destinations, allowing you to append or insert
new dictation where you need it. Important safety note: while Vlingo
isn't intended for use while driving or during other attention-
critical tasks, it's probably less distracting to speak a few
sentences than it is to type them.
Unfortunately, there are one or two drawbacks to the Vlingo fandango.
First, there isn't a raw 'notepad' mode, where you can simply dictate
text with the intention of copying it to another app. Of course, if
you have the $6.99 email module, you can use that for free text entry,
but in the free app there's no direct way to do it except by speaking
a Facebook update and then copying instead of sending it (which works
fine, by the way).
The second drawback is more consequential, and hopefully one that will
be fixed over time; the recognition simply isn't as good as Dragon's,
at least at the start (in one instance, it misheard "2.0" as "to
porno," which is certainly spicier). Vlingo's VP of Consumer Business,
Hadley Harris, told me that the app does learn and improve as you use
it, both for individual accuracy as it's corrected and globally as new
words are added to the back-end recognition engine.
The good news is, the base app is free, and it's worth a try to see if
it meets your needs as well or better than the Dragon suite, Siri or
any of the other voice apps. I'm not sure the email or SMS buy-ups are
as good a deal, but that will depend on your individual needs and
usage profile.
<end excerpt>
Excerpt from U.K. Know your Mobile Vlingo review:
<begin excerpt>
There are a whole load of commands you can instruct Vlingo to do,
including find an address or business on Google Maps, search the
internet, dial a phone number, send an SMS or email.
The design is pretty basic, comprising of nothing but that Press &
Speak button and the help panel below.
In the top right corner, there's the app menu that allows you to
select manually which application you'd like to use voice commands
for. It's a lot less fun to use Vlingo in this way, but the accuracy
is better because you cut out half of the command.
So now onto the negatives.
Like many voice command apps, Vlingo sometimes struggles to pick up
what you're saying. For example, we asked it to text our friend
Jennifer asking 'How's the feature going?' The app translated this at
'How is the peach during'.
Another issue with texting and emailing is that you can't just send an
SMS or email directly from the app - you'll have to copy the text and
paste it into the SMS or email app and then send it. This seems a
little pointless really, especially as the iPhone doesn't yet support
multitasking - you can't just swap between the apps, so Vlingo will
close when you enter the SMS or email app.
The service failed to connect us to Twitter at all, which is an issue
as this is the social networking service we use the most.
Vlingo would be a useful app if it supported in-app messaging rather
than copying and pasting functionality (that you pay for the privilege
to use) and the voice recognition technology was more accurate.
As it stands, we don't really see the point of it - it doesn't save
time when using the email or SMS functions, although the Google search
and Google Maps functionality are a little better.
Take our advice: Get this app, but don't bother paying for the add-ons.
<end excerpt>
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
Ricardo Walker wrote:
Hi,
Voice control which comes built in to the iPhone already lets you
control the iPod and make calls with your voice. If you live in the
U.S. or Canada, you can download dragon dictation which allows you
to compose e-mails and texts with your voice. I think its still
free but not sure.
hth
On Mar 30, 2010, at 3:57 PM, graham wrote:
Hi,
For anyone who uses the Iphone, I wonder has anyone had any
experience of vlingo an ap that is supposed to allow you to use
your voice to dictate texts, call people and drive your Ipod?
If so is it usable with Voiceover?
See the link below
http://vlingo.com/
Kind regards
Graham
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "MacVisionaries" group.
To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en
.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "MacVisionaries" group.
To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en
.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"MacVisionaries" group.
To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
