Excuse Me Services (creators of Dial Directions) has finally made available its Say Where iPhone application which lets users search several popular Web services using just their voice. The tool was originally shown off at DemoFall back in early September, and it's taken this long to go through Apple's certification process.
Its big feature is that you can search Google Maps, Yellowpages.com, Yelp, and Traffic.com without having to use the iPhone's often times challenging on-screen keyboard. You simply talk into the microphone and it converts your speech into a search query. There's location awareness, so once the phone pinpoints where you are it will narrow what it's searching for. You can also have it start and end in different locations, which can be set by simply speaking into the microphone.
The one big problem I found with the application was the quality of the voice recognition. It managed to pick up city names just fine, but out of five attempts at specific addresses it only succeeded once, and it was on some very basic words like "center" and "main." I had far better luck simply saying intersections, which it pulled in with ease. It seems when you mix in numbers and street names it gets a little overwhelmed. It's also worth mentioning that I was doing this in a quiet part of an office building, which means it's going to have a harder time if you're out on a busy street.
Another issue is that this app requires too many button presses to make it worthwhile over a simple type-in search. It's been designed as a way to alleviate the need to pay attention to what you're doing, but you still need to go through two or three menus before you get to your result, which usually requires firing up another application--be it Safari or Google Maps. Ideally, you could set it to automatically jump to the recording with just one click after it's been launched, then open up those pages with an in-app maps tool or Webkit browser.
I filmed a quick demo of me using it below. You can also check out the official video here.
At DemoFall, Mapflow demonstrated its iPhone application, designed to automate carpooling. The product was just one of many shown built around the iPhone at the event.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)SAN DIEGO--At Demo and DemoFall, there are always easily identifiable trends among the dozens of companies chosen to present their products.
In previous iterations of the events that I've attended, those trends have been photo-sharing services, online video hosting, Web 2.0, and the like.
This week, the trend--at least as I've seen it--has been the number of companies here with iPhone applications. Not every one of them is talking prominently about the applications they have, but Demo lead organizer Chris Shipley told me informally that she thinks that there must be at least a couple dozen companies with iPhone applications here out of the 72 total presenters.
I'll be the first to admit that I was slow to understand the value of iPhone apps, and I suppose that's because it took me awhile to buy one of the devices, and even longer after I did before I started trolling the Apple App Store looking for the best and brightest of what was out there.
My major introduction to the applications was a day I spent last month in Seattle, basically letting a series of them control my life for a day. And more recently, I have found myself blown away by some of the most simple applications imaginable. For example, Showtimes determines where you are and then comes up with a list of movie theaters--sorted by proximity to you--and shows the films showing at each and the times for each film.
As I said, it's totally simple, and pure genius.
Ultimately, while other mobile phones have many of the features of the iPhone, I don't think that there will be any others in the near future that combine GPS, a great interface, the power of an operating system like OS X, and a network of developers eager to reach out to an audience of users as devoted to their devices as iPhone owners.
Back here at DemoFall, there is definitely no shortage of companies that have developed applications for the device, and some of them seem very promising to me, even though most have yet to appear in the App Store.
I have my own ideas, as I stated above, why I think iPhone apps are the future of software, but I thought these developers would have opinions even more valuable than mine, since they're building businesses around the platform.
WebDiet built an iPhone application designed to help people find restaurants that serve the kind of healthy food they want to eat.
(Credit: WebDiet)Among the companies incorporating the iPhone into their Demo products are WebDiet, Telnic, SkyData, The Echo Nest, and Rudder.
"Right now, (the iPhone is) the platform with the most immediacy," said Richard Bryce, CEO of Mapflow, a company here with a product centered around an iPhone app. "Especially for the consumer market."
It's easy to see why Bryce would think so.
Mapflow is a very interesting product designed around the idea of helping drivers offset the high costs of gas by finding people who need rides to pay to fill empty seats in their cars.
"Most of our lives are ad hoc," Bryce said. "We're trying to apply the iPhone's smart technology to give that ad hoc, on-demand capability to carpooling."
The Mapflow system works by letting drivers define routes--either one-time, or repeat--they're following and the number of seats they have available to fill. The iPhone makes it simple to do this through lists that can be easily displayed and because the phone's GPS chip quickly determines where the driver is in proximity to anyone looking for a ride.
It might sound weird to pick up strangers in this manner, but Mapflow requires that all users register with their name, a photo, and a credit card, and that means that drivers can feel confident that whomever they pick up is probably going to be safe. And when they arrive to pick up the rider, the iPhone displays the rider's picture so the driver can be sure the person is who he or she is supposed to be.
In addition, drivers and riders alike can choose preferences for the type of person with whom they want to travel. This means, for example, that women can choose to ride only with other women.
Further, the service has a quick and easy rating system--again, enabled by the iPhone's elegant interface--that allows everyone to weigh in on the people with whom they've traveled.
Riders pay about 30 cents a mile to use the system, and Mapflow makes its money from a 15 percent commission on the transactions. Drivers pocket the rest.
Clearly, there are many questions the company must answer before the product becomes profitable--and of course, it must first release the application, which it plans to do in about four weeks. But this seems to me to be a very good use of the device, especially given the growing emphasis on getting people to stop driving one to a car.
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(Credit:
Evite)
As of Wednesday, Evite's Send-to-Phone text alerts--which let users get event details on their mobile phone--include a voice-activated directions service. Yes, the addition of direction texts means partiers have lost one of their top excuses for being late. That drawback aside, this free new feature could be quite helpful.
It works from any cell phone and doesn't require any GPS, data plan, or registration. Guests can just click the "directions" link in the Evite event details text message to launch a call to the voice-activated service. They then say their start address or intersection and get turn-by-turn driving directions via SMS.
A partnership between Evite and mobile voice-entry technology company Dial Directions, the feature is available immediately nationwide. Watch the video below to see how it works.
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