Google Introduces Voice Actions for Android

by Antonio Wells Aug 12, 2010 7:04 PM – 6 Comments

Install

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGbYVvU0Z5s

Why tap, type or Swype controls for your Android smartphone. Google introduced a feature today only available for Android 2.2 phone (pre-installed on DROID 2) called Voice Actions for Android which allow you to control your phone by speaking: text and emails, launch music, websites, and searches, call contacts and businesses, speak notes, and map directions with turn-by-turn navigation!

Speak any of these commands to perform a Voice Action on your phone:

send text to [contact] [message]
listen to [artist/song/album]
call [business]
call [contact]
send email to [contact] [message]
go to [website]
note to self [note]
navigate to [location/business name]
directions to [location/business name]
map of [location]

And of course, you can still conduct a Google search using your voice.

Voice Actions only work with US English speakers right now.

Download and Get Started

If you have another phone with Android 2.2 (like the Nexus One, HTC Evo or the original Droid), you’ll need to download several app updates from Android Market to get all the latest goodness:

Voice Search (this app includes Voice Actions)
Google Search widget
music apps (e.g. Pandora, Last.fm, Rdio, mSpot)

Use both QR barcodes we’ve provided above to download the Voice Search and Search Widget apps from the Android Market!

[Via Google Mobile Blog]

Tags: Android 2.2, DROID 2, Froyo, Google Voice Search, Search Widget, Voice Actions, Voice Actions for Android, Voice Search

Categorised in: Apps Blog, Featured, News

6 Comments

By Nebula on August 13, 2010 at 3:43 am:

Looks really good should be a good addition to Android

Reply
By John on August 15, 2010 at 10:23 pm:

Nice idea but I can’t get it to install… Downloads and starts to install then comes back with invalid install. I’m just thinking maybe it is already installed with my custom rom? How does that work, can you update applications that are installed as part of the rom?

Reply
- By Jason Norment on August 16, 2010 at 12:19 am:
  
  John,
  
  What device are you using? I’ve tested this with my Evo and it works great! Of course, I haven’t tried this on a custom ROM or a rooted phone yet.
  
  Reply
  - By John on August 16, 2010 at 5:50 pm:
    
    I’m running on a moto droid. I’m running ultimate droid 6.0 rom which is rooted, overclocked, and amazing.
    
    Reply
By william8251 on August 23, 2010 at 12:58 pm:

Alarm set function on Droid running Froyo does not work. Google is currently working on a fix.
Also, Send text to [contact] does not recognize some non standard names (I cant get it to use Aileen) and does not insert recipient in (Send to) field.
This app has great potential, but need a lot more attention.

Alarms: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=2d4adfef37672a22&hl=en

Reply
By william8251 on August 23, 2010 at 9:00 pm:

Found out that contacts ….”send text to:”, “send email to:” are pulled from your google account, I checked “sync contacts” and it now will insert contacts in Send to field.

——————————————————————————————————-
Below is for a EVO4G…but I did this on my Droid and it worked.
Copied from this thread: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=0fda735a3ea8b219&hl=en

FOUND A FIX!

Seems you need to sync your contacts.

In home screen hit the menu button
Goto Settings, then Accounts & sync
Select your google account
Check the Sync contacts box
Tap the Sync now button
Restart your phone (turn it off, then back on)

I’ve read it will only search contacts stored on your google account, so if they are saved only to your phone you may be out of luck.

Let me know if this works for you too.

Reply