Geekshow

Spotlight: Vlingo – Voice App

You speak – Vlingo listens. This versatile voice recognition app is a powerful tool that can be used to call a friend, search Google Maps, or even update your Facebook status.

The iPhone does not have built-in voice recognition, but that is the beauty of 3rd party apps. Vlingo is actually very accurate, especially for free. The Home screen has a great layout. At the top-left is a ‘Settings’ button, and on the top-right is an info button. Settings include content filtering, choosing either Google or Yahoo! as the default search option, turning on auto dial, and adding social sites. The info page lists tutorials and has a link to Vlingo FAQs.

The middle part of the main screen has a button that takes the user to the What You Can Say tutorial page. This page lists the simplest ways to get the most accurate results from Vlingo. The middle section also has a large Press + Speak button. This button can be either pressed and held or pressed before and after speaking.

The five tabs along the bottom are Home, Maps, Search, Phone, and Social. From the Home screen, the user must preempt the request with a command, such as “Call John Smith mobile.” Whereas, on the Phone screen, all one has to say is “John Smith mobile.”

The Maps screen works a little differently. After the user verbalizes the command, a Map It button pops up, and when tapped, it sends the results directly to the Google Maps App. Likewise, the results on the Search page are shown in the app, but when clicked, the user is taken to Mobile Safari. On the Social page, the user can select Facebook, Twitter or both. All results can be edited manually if needed.

Vlingo is really fun to use. Speaking requests instead of manually typing requests for Google or to get an address in Google Maps is faster, and I’ll admit it is also cooler too. I tried other voice recognition apps such as VoiceBoxDial and Google Mobile App with lesser results.

As of this writing, Vlingo is aware of a bug in the current 1.0.1 version, where about every 24-hours you must clear and re-enter your Facebook account information or get an error message asking you to do so. Since this is a known issue and it is all done within Vlingo, I have just become accustomed to doing it. If you have already spoken your status update when you get the error message, Vlingo will save your update on the Social page until you return.

Listed in the FAQ is a question pertaining to SMS and Email support. Vlingo states that these features will be released in future updates. Imagine being able to dictate email or speak a text message reply – all for free!

In order for Vlingo to be so accurate, the first time you use Vlingo it uploads the contact names from your address book. According to their privacy policy, they never use the info for anything else and just the names, not numbers or addresses are uploaded. Check out their privacy policy here and their explanation in the FAQs here. Although this process is quick and easy, some people have expressed concern for privacy.

Get Vlingo for free here.

Version 1.0.1 reviewed
iPhone software 2.0 or above required
Only the iPhone and iPhone 3G are officially supported
(iPod Touch 2nd Gen w/ external mic might work though)