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Google Unveils New Search Features, Including iOS Voice Search
First time accepted submitter sohmc writes "Some time ago, Google admitted that the biggest threat was not other search engines but services like Siri. However, Google just bridged that gap with Google Voice Search, already available in Jelly Bean, but also available via downloadable app. Google also submitted this app to the iOS App Store and is currently waiting approval. However, Slashdotters are no doubt recalling to mind the 'Google Voice' fiasco, in which Apple refused to allow it to appear, saying that it replaces a native function. It wasn't until Apple was brought before Congress to answer questions on how it approves or rejects apps that Google Voice was brought in."
Other search engines are not as big a threat as Siri?
What is this made-up crap about Congress in the summary? Do the editors bother reviewing submissions? (Of course not, this is Slashdot!)
Voice search has been on Android for about three years now.
Just because IOS users are finally getting it does not make it news.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Google voice search is just an alternative entry method for the standard search. It is hardly a strategic counter to the more AI-driven approach (ok, quasi-AI) that Siri represents. And it does little to address either the vertical search gap presented by Yelp, or the "diagonal" functionality gap that Siri addresses by smoothly integrating with your other iOS apps like text message, alarm or calendar.
Apple ought to have been prosecuted for its anti-competitive practices a long time ago. I have no idea why this hasn't happened.
For God's sake, Microsoft is forced to include a nag screen advertising other browsers (including the ones virtually nobody uses) while Apple gets a free pass to prevent others browsers from even functioning properly on iOS, censors its competitors and dissidents in its app store, and makes use of vendor lock-in wherever it can.
Why the double standard?
Coincidentally (perhaps), "Siri" was the name of a gay starship captain in "The forever War".
Microsoft tried that "security" line too. The courts didn't buy it. Maybe the government can break any law it wants in the name of "security", but corporations can't.
You don't have to be a monopoly to be prosecuted. Microsoft certainly wasn't a monopoly on the desktop when it was prosecuted. Or Standard Oil when it was prosecuted. You only have to have a large enough share of a certain market that your presence is "anti-competitive" and blocks other companies from succeeding. Apple certainly fits that description in the cellphone & tablet markets.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
The monopoly "requirement" only applies to Section 2 violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Section 1 "anti-competitive" violations have no such requirement.
Regardless of what Google may have said about its "biggest threat", search engines are the backbone of many other interesting services anyway. Nowadays it's how we get everywhere. Most of the time I barely bother with bookmarks: if I want to find a locksmith in West Fooville, I might google "locksmith in west fooville kentucky" or I might speak it into a phone, but it's the search engine that's doing the heavy lifting. I suspect that the targeted ads in gmail are built on top of their search engine in some fashion, and not just a natural language understanding engine (anybody out there know for certain?).
By the way, if you want a Google [and Amazon] insider's perspective on services and platforms, you must check out Steve Yegge's classic rant on the topic: http://steverant.pen.io/
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Troll? No, the word you're looking for is 'informative'. It's a classic work of science fiction, and I could definitely see naming a product after a character in it, especially if it's an 'in joke'.
Now you can search by saying it instead of typing it. This will be a new paradigm like web appliances.
The court declared MS to be a monopoly so who should've believe? You or the court?
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
A monopoly doesn't need to control 100% of the market. It just needs to have monopoly power by controlling a large chunk of the market and being able to direct the market at will.
I really don't like these new voice features. Having to hear the incessant blathering from some cell phone users is bad enough - now I have to hear them talking at their phones when they're not on a call?
#DeleteChrome
When you have to use underhanded tactics, you know you are already losing.
And while Apple fanbois wet their pants over Siri gimmick, Google is going for a kill here with a real function that actually works.
And Apple hasn't been nailed for it, nor is anyone but the Android fan boys even bringing it up. So who's the moron?
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
microsoft controlled 90% of the operating system market when the antitrust suit was filed in 1998
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ofnote/9-16mrktshare.mspx
Countries define what percentage qualifies as a monopoly. In the UK, a company is defined as having monopoly power when it passes 25% market share.
http://economicsonline.co.uk/Market_failures/Monopoly_power.html
In the US, 100% has never been required to qualify as a monopoly. Standard Oil controlled 91% of production, and 85% of US sales four years before the antitrust suit was filed.
Section 2 of the sherman antitrust act:
Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony
And to be prosecuted under that section, two things have to be proven:
(1) the possession of monopoly power in the relevant market and
(2) the willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident.
#2 is called the rule of reason - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_reason
You?
So, since you're the one accusing Apple of violating competition laws, and the US Government says they aren't, I'm the moron when my arguments are based in reality? Oh...k.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
While it seems like the early versions of the iOS App may limit voice input to search, it makes sense that Google's angling to compete with Siri's personal assistant functionality by integrating with Google Calendar, Gmail, etc. Using the Google's iOS Voice App to "book an appointment" on an iPhone configured with Google's ActiveSync/Exchange Gmail and Calendar connector could appear to behave identically to Siri.
Siri would presumably trigger a calendar event creation directly on the phone after receiving data from Apple's server, while Google's Voice App could transmit the appointment creation command to Google's server and add the appointment to the user's Google Calendar. The appointment would immediately be fetched by the iPhone's Calendar App, so the two actions would appear the same to the user.
Apple evil. Google angelic. Discuss. Google should make a commercial where hordes of drab, chain-laden shills are listening to Steve on a huge video display spout off about conformity. Then that one guy, the CEO that stole phone secrets while on Apple's board, forgot his name, anyway he breaks his chains and hurls a giant penguin into the video screen. And, and, it shatters. And then all the sheeple break out of their bonds and...well, you know.
Bow to your god, slashdot. Bow to google.
MC
/. finds me to be 20% Troll, 80% Funny
Can Google invent a text search feature? You know, where you type words into a text box and Google returns a list of pages that contain those words? That would be cool. Can Google work on that next?
One step closer to the internet breathalyzer. Blocking drunk people from searching the internet when it detects wavering pitch and slurred speech.
Wrong kind of troll. It should be "go back to your lake".
I'm not him and I understand that Apple is not a monopoly. Although I think that the laws regarding monopolies are a joke. It's those rules that make capitalism fail as a system.
Especially given that they apparently own exclusive rights to have devices with rounded corners.
I find it weird that these advanced voice services aren't available pre-Jelly Bean. I wouldn't have thought it was a technical limitation - aren't all the voice commands just fired off into some cloudy thing anyway?
I can imagine they want to give people incentive to upgrade to a new phone, but Apple tried that with Siri and seemed to get routinely bashed for it. I haven't seen too many people (other than me :) bitching about it for Android though...
Google: What will it take to get this app in the app store?
... some time later ...
Apple: It would take an act of Congress.
Apple: It was a figure of speech!
I wonder if Google Voice Search will work on the iPhone 4 or the iPad 1/2? They aren't powerful enough to run the Siri web service /sarcasm :P
I'd be satisfied with a Google "improvement" that allowed it to search on what you typed in without having to use quotation marks. It would also be nice if it didn't ask whether you meant Hancock when you typed in Hanock.
Having a monopoly is perfectly legal. In some cases, it's a very practical move (natural monopolies, when properly regulated), in others, it just falls out because of the nature of the market (some software sold is so specialized, only one company really makes it because the market consists of 10-odd entities, say).
That's perfectly allowable by all the laws.
What's not allowable is when you use that monopoly to basically barge your way into another market (e.g. Microsoft Windows barging into the browser world by including IE).
Apple nearly fell into anti-trust with the iPod and iTunes Store - because they practically used the iPod and iTunes to lock people in. It would be a very fine line (because iPod+iTunes complemented each other, and iPod grew in dominance due to timing alongside iTunes first-mover advantage). The iPhone? Not so much - Android is a bigger seller and has more marketshrae. The iPad? Perhaps, though it's marketshare is dropping (it's down to sub-70%), and was really first-mover advantage compounded by well, crappy competitors with rushed products. Though, it's unclear where Apple is muscling in.
Heck, Google has to be careful - they own practically all the advertising networks out there (making them both the supplier of "good ads" like AdSense, and the purveyor of annoying ones like popunders courtesy DoubleClick, a Google-owned subsidiary).