Overview
Are you tired of voice dialing apps that can never seem to understand your command? What about programs that take forever to process, only to dial your mother when you politely asked it to dial your girlfriend? iVoiceDialIt is a voice dialing application for anyone who wishes to dial their contact fast and virtually hands free. The program features a very user-friendly interface that allows you to train the program and dial your contact all within a matter of seconds. You click on the app icon, shake your phone, say the name of the person you wish to dial, and the rest is history. The phone takes care of the noise filtering, the recognition, but most of all, the dialing!
All The Nice Features You Get!
iVoiceDialIt contains many features that a person-on-the-go would appreciate. First and for most, it utilizes the familiar Apple User Interface, which allows the user to easily navigate between calling a contact, training the program to recognize a contact, and the system settings. Next, training the program to recognize names is made simple and efficient by voice prompts and echo feedbacks. Then, the dialing is made hassle-free with the program’s shake to dial feature. Lastly, the program ensures accuracy in dialing by using its real time background noise cancellation and echo feedback features.
Training the program and prompting it to dial literally takes a matter of seconds. To train the application, begin by clicking on the app, then selecting the contact in which you would like the program to recognize. Next, press the green “listen” button and wait 1 second before speaking the contact’s name. The program will prompt you to do this twice to ensure accuracy. (or however many times you prefer, which you may alter via the system settings) You may now exit the program, proceed to train the program to recognize the next contact, or to playback the voice tag you recorded. To dial, all one has to do is open the program, shake the iPhone to activate its listening mode, and proceed to say the name of the contact, within seconds, you would be connected to your desired contact!
Beyond the basics that this program offers, it is also fully customizable via the settings tab. You can train the program to measure the noise level of your environment, select the number of times the program prompts you for voicetag, turn the feedback echo and the voice prompts on/off, and even turn off the shake to listen mode.
A True Perspective!
I had high expectation for this application as it is not the first of its kind. I was impressed with the simple interface and the ease of use. (specifically because you do not have to press and HOLD the “listen” button, as many other voice dialing applications requires you to do during training and/or dialing). However, one immediate downfall I recognized about this app was the apparent lack of instruction. While the voice prompts are designed to guide the user in training the program, it in fact confuses the user as it is very faint (even in full volume), and comes out of the speaker end of the phone. Furthermore, the instructions on the screen simply states “iVoiceDialIt will prompt you for 2 training passes,” without explaining when or how many times to speak. (you get the instruction only through voice prompts) In fact, the first time I used the application, I thought it was broken because the voice prompts were so soft that it was inaudible, even in a relatively quiet office room. Another downfall about this application is its response speed to your touch. Although the voice recognition technology seems pretty mature and accurate, the lag that occurs almost after every press is very distracting, especially when combined with the soft voice prompts. It almost makes it impossible to know when the system is ready for you to speak. Furthermore, one must wait 1 second after a “beep” to begin speaking. In itself this isn’t a distracting feature, but when one cannot hear the faint beep, it becomes quite a problem. A missing practical feature of this phone is the lack of blue tooth support. However, Apple has not released this to the developers yet, so it is hardly the developers’ fault. But, this makes dialing inconvenient since in order to hear the call hands free, one would have to either use a headphone, or press the speaker phone button.
Competitors!
Since iVoiceDialIt is not the first of its kind to attempt to utlize voice recognition technology to help users dial their contact, there are tons of similar apps out there, both free and paid. However, unlike its competitors, this app offers very accurate and fast voice recognition. Furthermore, this app stands out for its simplicity of use. Still, perhaps the greatest virtue of this app is that it allows users to dial their contact virtually hands-free. You do not have to press (and hold) a button while speaking your contacts’ name, nor do you have wait and pray that the app won’t accidentally dial someone else (since the app will provide you with a voice feedback). If you are a person that is always on-the-go or driving, and you find it very difficult for you to dial numbers with your finger, this application is for you!
So Here's the Lowdown...
This application is awesome at voice recognition, processing speed, simple interface, and providing accurate feedback. However, it is not so good at processing your touch command in a timely manner and at projecting its voice prompts.
