PDF Way back before I got my beautiful Iphone, I was with another provider whose name rhymes with frint. I decided that I was going to be very safe and sign up for the voice dialing service for an additional $5.00 a month. I was on the road a lot driving all over creation with my two babies in the car and I wanted to make sure that I did everything possible to keep everyone safe. This seemed like a brilliant, easy fix for a potentially dangerous situation. Fortunately we never did get into an accident, but this particular voice dialer almost caused me to accidentally throw my phone on the ground and jump up and down on it repeatedly.
In defense of the technology of the time, there are a ridiculous amount of people in my life whose first initial is “J”. It’s been that way my whole life. My father, my brother, my two grandfathers, my husband, three of my closest girlfriends, my ever constant partner in business and crime, uncles, cousins, etc. And this particular voice dialer would get stuck on the “j” sound. It went something like this:
Me: Call Jim at work
Dialer: Call Jillian at home, correct?
Me: No. Call Jim at work
Dialer: Call Joe on mobile, correct?
Me: No. Call. Jim. at. Work.
Dialer: Call Jackie at work, correct?
Me: ARGH!! $%&*$#%#^%$^#!!!!!!
It went like that for about three days before I called and canceled the service. I never attempted to use another one.
Since getting the Iphone, I’m completely addicted to Iphone apps. Specifically free Iphone apps and I probably download 10-15 of them every week. Most of them I discard, but I have found a few gems along the way. I decided this week to see if the voice dialers were any good, or if it would still get stuck on my “J” problem. I did a search for “Voice Dialer” in the Itunes app store and there were seven of them. I downloaded all of them and went to work.
First of all, three of them weren’t really voice dialers, two were voice activated contact and direction apps, one a voice emailer which just opened an email to the person you were emailing, and while cool, didn’t really fit the profile. The four free voice dialing apps that came up in the search were:
- Melodis Voice Dialer
- Voice Box Dialer
- Adela Voice Voice Dialer
- Cactus Voice Dialer
Let’s start with Cactus. First of all, it only got two stars in the App store reviews, so I didn’t really have high hopes for it. However, it was pretty accurate when it came to getting the right contact and the graphics are simple and very large. I find this one to be best for people who are using it while driving and really can only glance down to make sure it’s the correct contact. Adjustable settings include auto launch, allow multiple results, use “main” contact number and only use full names.You can also create a group in your contacts called “cactus” to only have it search through those contacts. There seems to be a problem with the app crashing if your contact has a digit in the name, but the developer has already submitted the fix to Itunes and is just waiting for them to update. (Removing the offending contacts from the “cactus” group also fixes that problem.)
Next Melodis Dialer: Again, pretty accurate with the contacts, but the only options are to turn sound effects and vibrate on and off and choose the length of time (0-6 seconds) before auto dial. The one thing that I liked about this one is that if found my contacts very quickly.
AdelaVoice Voice Dialer: This one definitely has the best looking interface. Nice soft colors, modern design. It got the worst rating of the four for accuracy though. When it gets the contact wrong you do have a button to press to help it learn more accuracy. They claim to rebuild their voice models on their servers frequently, and that by using that feature you’re helping to improve its accuracy.
Voice Box Dialer: I like this one because it talks to you. I like anything that communicates verbally. Also, the number doesn’t have to be in the contacts. Saying “Dial 5551212 will bring up that number and you press the number and it dials. I like that option a lot. Especially when you’re driving around and see a house for sale that you might be interested in. Without this you have to stop the car to type in the number, or drive with one hand and one eye while you navigate the key pad. Yeah, not good. You can also easily access your contacts and keypad from within the app rather than having to switch back and forth between phone and the app. I wish it wasn’t this horrible neon green though. Maybe I can convince the developer to make a pink skin for it. You know, for free, cause I’m sure they have nothing better to do and it is all about me, right?
I think I’ll probably be using Voice Box the most, because of it’s features – but I’m probably going to keep Adela on there as well and see if it really does improve. All in all, they all work. It’s really just a matter of preference and what features are important to you.
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