Voice recognition instead of typing
Google Speech Recognition is tightly integrated into Android 2.1 on the Nexus One. That means you can pretty much use your voice for input in any and all fields.
The recognition itself is done in a cloud, so you will need Internet connection. We are on EDGE with AT&T in a major metropolitan area, so no access problems there.
Now, the iPhone has its own built-in voice recognition (activated by pressing and holding the home button) called Voice Control. This feature has been available since June of last year; we used it maybe once when it came out, and would guess that the majority of users had the same experience. Also, you can use Google's Mobile app on the iPhone, which has the same vox-rec technology as the Nexus One; as much as we like that app, we barely used it since you have to launch it as a separate app.
We can hate and love voice recognition tech, it's still not perfect. First of all, tight integration makes a huge difference in the use frequency, as much as quality of recognition does. QOR has to be such that you don't get annoyed by frequent incorrect interpretations, and yet it has to work with people who mumble and/or speak with accents.
In this case, we forced ourselves to use voice recognition as often as possible. Actually, it takes time to get used to speaking to the phone, rather than typing – it may take a different part of the brain, but don't quote us on that. The end result of our little test: given enough time, you will get used to talking to your phone and consciously make a decision to use voice over typing specifically when you are alone and/or driving.
We believe the combination of voice recognition integration, quality of recognition and availability of the service made that feature really work for us.
Strangely this feature is somewhat overlooked by other reviewers, but Google gets 4 out of 5 stars. We really wanted to give it that fifth star, but one little thing made us mad; you can use voice input for almost everything except email addresses in outgoing messages. This makes no sense and is one of those Android UI design issues we keep talking about.
If you do know a way to speak an email address into email using the Nexus One (or any other phone running Android 2.1), please let us know!
Yes, you can use Speech Recognition to enter email address, swipe your finger across keyboard. Same trick work in other situations, swipe keyboard instead of pressing mic button. Thanks Dorrington for the info in the comments.
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You actually can use voice recognition for addressing emails. Just swipe your finger from left to right across the keyboard. That works any other time, as well. It’s particularly useful in a car where it’s hard to hit the tiny microphone key.
Thanks a lot, that little trick worked
I’ve read that the amount of memory available on the Nexus One to run apps is tiny compared to the iPhone – since you can’t run apps from the SD card. And that this issue will limit the use of larger/more complex apps (future apps). And (one more worry) would this issue be better or worse with Nexus One on Verizon. Otherwise, I am liking the Nexus One. Thoughts?
Great series, by the way.
Google said they will look into fixing that issue in a future version of Android. So unless they fix that for Nexus One release for Verizon it will remain the issue.
As of right now since majority of apps on android relatively small it’s not a problem. It become a problem for game developers, since games can take over 500mb easy
When Google said, that they will release a phone that will be for everybody not to mention for the whole world. They aren’t really exagerating in fact now that their most awaited official nexus one statement has finally been revealed. The question if…
Slide your finger across the keyboard. It will go to voice recognition. It’s a nice shortcut and even works when there is no voice recognition icon on the keyboard (like when entering e-mail addresses).
To clarify, the system RAM (running application space) the N1 has is 512MB (iPhone 256MB).
What you guys are referring to is the location where you can store your applications. It’s limited to a separate, internal 512MB flash.
That said, it’s just the main executable that is required to be in that space. There’s nothing stopping the application from downloading additional files to the SD card for use.