Will the Real Voice Control Software Please Stand Up

For years, Microsoft Voice Command has been the most advanced, most well-integrated Voice control and text-to-speech application on any mobile device. I use it on my motorcycle with a Bluetooth enabled helmet as well as in the car all the time. It will speak incoming caller ID names to me… it will read text messages, appointment reminders, and email subjects to me… I can ask it to play music by artist, genre or album… I can ask it to call people or bring up their contact information… I can ask it for my battery level, time, next appointment, or tomorrow’s appointments… I can ask it to start any program installed on my device. Voice Command 1.6 is extremely useful for handsfree operation and it can all be activated from a Bluetooth headset!

Then came Windows Live Search for Mobile, which ALSO included voice recognition for location based searches. Unfortunately you have to open the software separately and use a different button in order to activate these types of searches. Obviously this is not easy to do while on a motorcycle.

Then Microsoft released the Recite Tech Preview application, which is a wonderfully smart program for recording and searching audio notes on a Windows Mobile device. Again, it requires activation by a different button and cannot be activated by a central voice controlling application.

Now, we have Microsoft’s TellMe division announcing yet another voice controlling application. From what we know about TellMe so far, it will allow you to make a call, send a text message, or perform a local search using Windows Live Search using voice recognition. This overlaps some of the features in Microsoft Voice Command and Live Search. The ability to send text messages using voice recognition is a welcome addition. However, will TellMe integrate with Microsoft Voice Command or does it require another different button press? Unfortunately it sounds like Microsoft’s TellMe software doesn’t come close to replacing Voice Command’s breadth of features

What if you want all of those things to be possible from one button? None of these programs integrate with each other as they should and their overlapping features are going to be very frustrating for users. What we really need is one extensible interface for any voice recognition or voice enabled application to integrate with.

I think we can all agree that voice control software is a must-have application on any mobile device, but what do you think of Microsoft’s current direction? Should they create a single extensible voice controlling platform that 3rd party developers can interface with? Or should they continue to develop separate voice enabled applications with their own overlapping ways of doing things?