What's All The Fuss About Nuance's New Really Smart Search App, Dragon Go?
July 16, 2011
Announced earlier this month, Nuance Communications' new search app, Dragon Go, has certainly caused chatter in the iPhone app review community. In fact, it's currently being highlighted as the iPhone app Pick of the Week. Being a big fan of Dragon Dictation, I had to give this app a try. Right now, I'd like to give you an overview, plus an opinion on how it stacks up to the competition.
Dragon Go isn't just any search app, it's a smart search app. Smart search apps can recognize key words and dynamically adjust the results for easiest and quickest access. Google search does have such a feature, providing video and image results when possible, displaying the meaning of a word instead of a page link when applicable, doing math calculations when an equation is entered, etc. However, Dragon Go is a combination of that and really smart services like Siri, which Apple snatched up last year.
Before I do my side-by-side comparison, I want to give a quick tour of the experience that is Dragon Go. You can either type in your search criteria or speak it, if you have an iDevice with a microphone. The app picks up on certain terms and uses them to route the search through dozens of websites and services to provide the best results.
Dragon Go has direct integration with the Phone, iPod, Maps, Last.fm, Pandora Radio, and Yelp apps, plus websites like Amazon, AccuWeather, Ask.com, Bing, Buy.com, CNN, eBay, Eventful, Facebook, Fandango, Flickr, Google, Hulu, IMDb, LinkedIn, MSN, MySpace, The New York Times, OpenTable, Tumblr, Twitter, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Weather Channel, Wikipedia, Yahoo!, YouTube, and many more.
So, how is this different from a Google or Yahoo! search? Instead of just giving a list of all pages that simply contain those search terms, Dragon Go is intelligent enough to do a search on specific web sites, some you may not even know exist. Filtering searches to only relevant sources can provide better results, and reduce the amount of steps to get you where you want to go.
For most of these you can simply end with "on Twitter," "Twitter," "on Facebook," "on YouTube," "photo(s) of," "image(s) of," and so on to search a specific site you know of. Although, Dragon Go will pick up words like "restaurant," "coffee shop," or "Target" and send you to Yelp results. Or ask about "showtimes" and Fandango results appear. "What events are going on tonight?" will send you to Eventful results near your current location.
That's really neat and all, however, it's the app integration that takes things up a notch. Speak "Alice In Chains on Pandora" and the Pandora Radio app will launch, then display the artist and song results for Alice In Chains. "Directions to Subway" will bring up Maps and plot the route to the nearest Subway restaurant, and you can do exact addresses as well. Commanding "Play The Space Between" will begin playback of the song The Space Between by Dave Matthews Band using the iPod app.
What search app wouldn't be complete without the ability to query the iTunes and App Store, right? Well, Dragon Go has that too. Saying, "Buy Tiny Wings" will set you up with a list of iOS apps, songs, and albums with the name Tiny Wings. This goes hand in hand with the iPod app integration. If you don't use the word "play," you can still get music results by saying the terms "music by," "artist," or "song(s) by." Any album and song stored on your iDevice will have a play button.
Some of you may be wondering; what if Dragon Go guesses wrong? No problem. You can edit searches with the keyboard, and you can also change sources. Perhaps you said a movie name and ended up on Google or in the media section. Below the search box is the source bar. The current selected source is in the middle and frontmost. You can scroll using left and right swipes. Dragon Go attempts to put relevant sources together. Movie and actor names, for example, will typically offer the media section, Amazon, Google, IMDb, Milo, Twitter, Wikipedia, and YouTube. You can find all of the supported app,s websites, and search term recommendations within the settings area.
Allow me to finish off with a quick comparison of Dragon Go and Siri. Dragon Go has a much nicer interface, in my opinion, because both the UI and results adapt to the search criteria. Notwithstanding, Siri did seem to have a few small advantages, depending on the use. Dragon Go uses the Yelp interface, and the implementation doesn't offer a lot of details in the list. Calling a business or getting directions requires entering the Yelp app or doing a second search using the "call" or "directions" keywords. Siri's consistent results list has a one tap call and map buttons. Siri is a combine all service, which allows you to save businesses as favorites and keep track of reservations within the Siri app. Dragon Go requires users to manage them directly through OpenTable, for example. Finally, I did notice at least one term Siri handled better, and that was "attractions." Dragon Go did a Google search, whereas Siri realized it fell within the events category.
Dragon Go! is compatible with iPad through Compatibility Mode, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, third generation iPod touch, fourth generation iPod touch and newer running iOS 4.0 or later, and available in the App Store as a free download.