Trackback URI | Comments are closed.
Apple iPhone 3GS Voice Control – Review
June 21st, 2009
by Amy Stevens Adams
It wasn’t until Saturday night, almost 36 hours after getting the new iPhone, that I remembered the feature for Voice Control. I had spent so much time playing around with all the other features that I’m surprised I hadn’t run across it. However, there isn’t an app for it, and I actually had to look on the Apple website to find out how to access it-it isn’t ‘intuitive’ like all the other features have been so far. To use it, you need to hold down the Home button for a couple seconds until the screen turns blue and a bell chirps. Then you’re free to speak your directive. I started out by telling it to ‘Call John Sedivy“. The automated voice repeated my command by telling me it was ‘calling John Sedivy, mobile”. Pretty cool. 
From there I tried out playing music by voice control. This didn’t go too well. When I asked it to “Play Vampire Weekend”, it played Aerosmith. Asked it to play Blink 182, it played U2. Asked to play Modest Mouse, it played the Clash. Metallica, and it called Paul. Asked it to play Muse, it told me “music is already playing”. etc etc etc
I had John try it out to see if it was just my voice it couldn’t recognize, but he had the same result.
I gave up on Saturday night and tried it again today. I had the same luck. I tried the feature to have it play similar songs. I would say “Play similar songs”, it would play Spoon. Very frustrating. I went into Apple’s page on Voice Control and watched the video. Here’s the catch, you have to say the command exactly like they have it in the video. Once I learned that, the voice control worked (about 90% of the time). Here’s a rundown of the exact commands;
1. Play songs by [group name]
2. Play more songs like this
3. Play album [album name]
I still can’t get it to play individual songs. Example, I ask it to play song ‘Walcott’ and it doesn’t recognize the command. If I ask it to play Walcott by Vampire Weekend, it will play songs by Vampire Weekend. So as far as I can tell, for right now you can only play an album or group/singer, but not a specific song. Maybe this is something Apple will correct with a future update.
Another thing to note, the Voice Control has to be activated each time you want to use it. It seems like it would be more useful to be able to turn it on and have it work continuously until turned off. This way I could drive, garden, cook, etc and just call out orders to my phone for my music requests. Again, maybe that will come in the future.
For now, I’m still very pleased with my iPhone 3GS. There will always be room for improvement, and if I know Apple, they will always be improving.
-Amy Stevens Adams of Cape Cod Branding
Similar articles you may also enjoy...Apple's Snow Leopard - Review (100%) Apple Gets It (73.5%) Apple iPhone 3GS-First Impressions (73.5%) iPhone 3GS Frozen! How To Fix (73.5%) July 4th and iPhone 3GS Video Review (73.5%) Thanks for visiting CCBbuzz!
Filed under Amy's Articles, Apple, Reviews | Comments (3)
3 Responses to “Apple iPhone 3GS Voice Control – Review”
[...] Amy Stevens Adams wrote an interesting post today onApple <b>iPhone 3GS</b> Voice Control- <b>Review</b> | Cape Cod BrandingHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
[...] Continued here: Apple iPhone 3GS Voice Control- Review | Cape Cod Branding [...]
[...] More: Apple iPhone 3GS Voice Control- Review | Cape Cod Branding [...]