As expected, one of the stars of Apple's iPhone event yesterday was its new Siri feature. The project, which the rumor mill dubbed Assistant, materialized on stage as a digital personal assistant for future iPhone users.
Even with its impressive demo yesterday, many folks have written Siri off as another failed attempt at a voice command feature. TUAW did some digging and found some evidence that it's much, much more than that...
Siri is Apple's new flagship feature on the iPhone 4S. In fact, they're counting on the iPhone 4S' Siri integration to move units, as it's an exclusive feature to the iPhone 4S.
But what some of you might not realize is this: Siri has already been available for the iPhone for quite some time now, in fact, it was just removed from the App Store in the last 24 hours.
In other words, it works on the original iPhone 4, quite similarly to the way it works on the new iPhone 4S, and we have the video to prove it...
If you haven't figured it out by now, there's more to iOS 5 than meets the eye. Since the new software was unveiled in June, Apple has been holding some of its best features close to the vest as it fine-tunes them to perfection.
One of those top secret features is a system-wide utility known as Assistant. The voice-activated digital concierge can do anything from sending text messages to performing internet searches. Want to see how it could work?
At Apple's WWDC event back in June, Scott Forstall promised us that we would see a public release of iOS 5 "this Fall." And seeing as how Fall officially starts tomorrow, we can't be too far away from an announcement.
While we've got a pretty good idea of what to expect from the new software, there still are a couple of unknowns. For example, we know Apple is working on a secret voice-to-text feature, but we haven't seen it in action. Enter the new Target app...
When it comes to iOS 5, Apple has some serious tricks up its sleeve. Though killer features like voice-to-text and Assistant weren't mentioned in Apple's WWDC keynote on the new firmware, they're there.
From what we know so far, the voice-to-text implementation is pretty straightforward. It appears to be system-wide and powered by Nuance technology. The Assistant feature on the other hand, has been a bit of a mystery. Until now...
In the weeks building up to this year's WWDC, there was a lot of speculation that Apple and Nuance were planning a major partnership to bring system-wide voice-to-text to iOS 5. The 2 companies were expected to make a big announcement at the Summer event.
But the developer's conference came and went with no mention of the new feature. Then we started to see code trickle in. Found deep inside Apple's new firmware, the evidence suggested that the company was still working on bringing voice-to-text to its customers this Fall.
Now we don't just have bits of code, we have actual proof. Hit the jump for the full screenshot...
Fresh from the release of iOS 5's fourth beta came news that there are references to unannounced voice recognition technology. When we wrote about this new development yesterday, speculation was that a Siri Assistant-like feature would be coming to iOS.
Now it seems there may be more to this 'talking to your iPhone' thing than we first thought, with 9to5Mac finding yet more code, this time pointing to integrated Nuance Dictation.
The code, discovered in the latest iOS 5 SDK, would bring Android-like text dictation to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. That is, if it makes its way into a final release of the OS...
In what is probably the biggest find since Apple unveiled iOS 5 to the world last month, 9to5Mac unveiled a major hidden feature in the new firmware last night. Remember when Apple purchased that little voice recognition app named "Siri" last year?
Well, it looks like their work is finally going to start showing up in iOS, as an OS-level feature called Assistant now exists in Beta 4. If you've been wondering what happened to all of that talk about Apple implementing a native voice-command system in iOS 5, you're going to love this...
Nuance is known for its intelligent voice technology, and the company is actually in a partnership with Apple to supposedly work on bringing better voice integration to iOS.
Nuance already has several productivity apps in the App Store, including Dragon Dictation. And their newest app brings the ultimate voice search experience to the iPhone. Hello, Dragon Go!
The entire tech industry watched as Scott Forstall outlined Apple's 10 most prized (or most ready) new features in iOS 5 last Monday. To everyone's surprise, the entire presentation went on without any mention of the rumored Apple/Nuance partnership.
TechCrunch and other media outlets reported multiple times last month on sources claiming that Apple and Nuance had struck a deal to bring legitimate voice recognition technology to iOS. But WWDC came and went without a word from either company...
Apple unveiled a truckload of iOS 5 features at WWDC on Monday, but one major thing was missing: Nuance voice integration. There was a strong series of rumors leading right up to the keynote that claimed iOS 5 would boast huge improvements in voice integration.
Unfortunately, no voice-related features were previewed during Monday's keynote, and the first iOS 5 developer beta has no voice additions to speak of.
Has Apple abandoned their partnership with Nuance in iOS? Or will we still see deeper voice integration in iOS 5 before it's released to the public in the next few months?
Speech recognition is a hot topic right now, and for good reason. It's evident that iOS 5 is going to feature a heavy mix of speech recognition tech, and this is the way that mobile phones are headed as a whole.
But how exactly will speech recognition integrate with iOS? For instance, how will we go about transcribing an SMS message using only our voice?
Jan-Michael Cart, creator of quite a few iOS 5 mockups, has envisioned his rendition of iOS 5's speech recognition tech, and has shared it with the rest of the Apple community...