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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."
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.
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".
Not true. It's done much more than simple text entry for a long time, and it got a major upgrade in Jelly Bean. Reviews are now generally calling it superior to Siri.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
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.
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
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.
Are you kidding me? It's not even a contest. Comparing Google Voice Search to Siri is just like comparing Google Search to Yahoo Search (the Yahoo Search of 10 years ago). Even Steve Wozniak says that Google voice search is vastly superior to Siri (even long before Gingerbread came out, he was saying stuff like that, now Google voice search can be used offline in addition to what it can already do online, and in that time, Siri has only been getting worse with even more commercial answers to non-commercially based queries).
Also, the idea of launching specific intents/actions on a phone instead of launching just a web page is an idea that Google pioneered long ago, that Apple just recently imitated.
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.
But Google Voice Search does also search through the internal content/actions of your phone at the same time as the Internet. It did that for a while now (that's why I can't comprehend how Apple even got a patent on a similar idea).
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
Not always. This one surprised me...
A few months back, I biked in to work. I was bit a concerned about riding home in the dark and wanted to see the sunset time. On a lark, I asked Siri, "Siri, what time is sunset?" Siri thought for a moment and came back and said, "Sunset is at 7:34PM."
Wow! I was impressed. Siri also showed me the weather for the rest of the week!
So I figured I'd try something else. "Siri, what time was sunrise?" Siri thought for a moment and came back and said, "I'm sorry, I can't tell you the weather from the past."
Huh? I'm asking about sunrise and sunset. Not weather.
I noticed that this has since been fixed--Siri will tell me sunrise and sunset times for anywhere in the country. But I can't say, "Siri, what time will the sun rise in Cleveland, Ohio, on December 23rd, 2012?" because Siri is getting sunrise and sunset information from the same place it gets weather information (which seems to be why it shows a weather forecast along side). But if I pose the same question to Wolfram-Alpha, it replies correctly.
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.
Can't speak for Google Voice Search on Android, but...
Awhile ago, we were making a McDonald's run and I asked Jennifer what she wanted. She told me to pick her up a 6-piece McNuggets with Barbecue sauce. I pulled out my iPhone and wrote myself a note in the notepad: Jennifer's order is a 6-piece McNuggets with Barbecue sauce. I then brought up Siri and said, "Siri, what is Jennifer's order?" Siri thought for a moment and said, "I don't know. Would you like me to search the web for Jennifer's order?"
What's funny is that when I went to the iOS Search Screen, turned on the microphone, and said, "Jennifer's order," the first thing to pop up was the note that I had written.
So, no, Siri only integrates with some of Apple's apps.
The FCC asked some questions, yes. And then did nothing at all about it. It wasn't until a year and a half later when Apple revised their App Store Review Guidelines that Google Voice was approved (along with many other apps that had been rejected previously). There's no evidence whatsoever that the FCC had any more to do with that than Congress did (read: none). The submitter is either woefully misinformed or intentionally trolling; either way the editors should have caught it.