Review: VoiceDial
by Zain Shauk
August 16, 2008
Overview
While VoiceDial allows users to make calls by simply speaking the name of a contact, it has problems. If functions at home, but does the opposite in the car.
Functionality
If you’ve been frustrated with the iPhone’s lack of voice recognition software, then you have likely thought about buying an app that would allow you to make calls without fumbling around with your touch screen.
VoiceDial allows you to do exactly that by first attaching voice recordings to contacts, then speaking the appropriate name upon launching the app.
It functions best when users record the recommended maximum of three voice samples per contact, with slight variations in the pitch and speed of pronunciation (so that you sound like a robotic fool when inputting them). It also does best with about 10 contacts, more than that might cause the app to get confused.
A confirmation feature can be turned on so that the app will ask you if it has the correct phone number before dialing. If you’ve recorded voice samples for “accept,” “repeat” and “cancel” the app will respond to the commands.
Probably the biggest advantages of VoiceDial are that it won’t pick a random number if it doesn’t recognize what you’re saying—instead it will say “not recognized”—and that it will dial a number immediately upon confirmation (other apps may only pull up the phone number and require you to initiate the call yourself).
Review
My experience with this app was up and down.
At home, a string of 30 attempts came up with only about three misfires and four “not recognized” instances.
But a ten-minute car ride had me sounding like a tone-deaf preteen from start to finish. I couldn’t get the app to recognize a single name, no matter how I twisted and flexed my vocal chords with varying pitches, volumes and plenty of headache.
The recognition software does not appear to be too complex and seems to look for matches with one of the samples you’ve recorded, not for general trends in the recordings, although I’m only speculating.
What was clear was that there were serious issues with very subtle background noise, something that shouldn’t be as big of a problem in any voice command application, especially one for dialing contacts, which I would think would be most useful in the car.
Summary
When VoiceDial works, it does the job and is pretty much the closest thing available for the iPhone to voice-dialing features available on other phones. But it isn’t very consistent.
