[reemrevnivek]

Your app is nice, but it's nothing like Siri.

My dumb phone is an '07 Motorola Razr on Verizon's OS (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_RAZR#Verizon_Wireless_...). It has a button on the side that I press and a computerized voice says "Say a command:" and lists the options:

    1. Call <Name> <Loc>
    2. Call <Number>
    3. Send Text <Name or #>
    4. Send Picture <Name or #>
    5. Lookup <Name>
    6. Go to <App>
    7. Check <Item>

It only understands these 7 commands. The voice processing wouldn't be good enough to compose a text message, #3 just sets that up for you to key in, but it's doing the job on a 50 MHz single-core ARM9 CPU instead of uploading it to a server somewhere. I have no beliefs that the above task is anything like Siri.

Siri is not about turning speech into text. That's been done already, everyone else has a button on their phone that does this, and you're offering them this familiar (and often broken or bad) functionality in an app for Android (Note: I'm not implying that your app is broken or bad). As long as your app is like what people are used to, you'll have a hard time of sales. Once you cross over to the functionality of the well-marketed and Apple-branded Siri, you'll do much better. Based on the description of your features, you're not there yet.

[sskates]

Our sense is that people don't want to use speech for everything ever, they'd much rather use their hands and eyes when they're available. We're laser focused on texting while driving right now, it's the one big use case for voice commands.

We've done a lot of user testing and have found the biggest problem with voice products now is that people try them twice or three times, and when they don't work they decide to give up on using that product. No one wants to spend time learning a user interface. So we've optimized our product for the first time user experience for texting. We're offering what voice what Dropbox did for cloud storage. There's nothing novel technology wise per se, only that the product is optimized for ease-of-use.

With regards to Siri, we're interested to see how it'll perform once it gets released into the wild.

[dotBen]

We're laser focused on texting while driving right now, it's the one big use case for voice commands.

Regardless of whether your app is same/better/worse than Siri, please please please don't pursue a use case around texting while driving.

I'll skip my rant about the fact that texting while driving is dangerous even if you remove the keyboard input (you still gotta read the reply messages @ 65mph).

(EDIT: Ok, I see that your app will read texts too. Still doesn't negate the following:)

The issue you face is that as a second-class citizen app (ie not Google or the device manufacturer) on my phone, here is my workflow to text while driving using your app:

1) I decide I want to text

2) While driving, I have to feel my way around my phone to press the fiddly "power" button at the top of the handset (let's assume it is in a cradle)

3) Oh, but wait I have screen-wipe security enabled, so I now got to dance my finger across the screen - again, while doing 75mph (yes, I like to drive fast up the 280)

4) Ok so now I'm in. But damn, I'm at the home screen. I got to find your app - we'll assume I put it on the backdrop of the home screen. I press it and wait for the app to load.

This all assumes that I put your app in a primary positon on my phone, that I wasn't already in another app and so I had to press the home button, that the home screen wasn't on a different 'pane' then the one your app icon is on, and that your app starts recording voice commands as soon as I open it up.

Sorry, but that's still A LOT of steps, is dangerous, may not be legal in California due to it being more then one button and makes a lot of assumptions.

Google and the handset manufactures, who give themselves first-class citizen access, have the advantage because they can add extra buttons for one-press access. They can also use private APIs to potentially remove the screen lock (although that has other issues associated with it). Apple, when they integrate Siri into iPhone 4S, will presumably have similar advantages.

Sorry, I'm all for the little guy and the 3rd party ecosystem - but I'm also for safety. As a driver (and motorcycle rider) I really fear people using tools like yours while driving.

For that reason, I'm sorry, but I really hope your app is a failure.

[sskates]

We agree with you completely, we are very much for safety.

We are against people touching their phones while driving (it's illegal in most states) and designed our product specifically so you don't have to touch your phone.

It auto starts up when it detects you've begun driving via your speed from GPS (go to Settings in the app to enable the auto start up). We also designed this GPS detection to not suck battery life (it will take about 1% of your battery every hour).

It works on phones even if the phone is in the passenger seat next to you- you just have to make sure to talk loudly enough.

It will even pick up your voice if your phone is in your pocket (again, just speak loudly enough) and you can hear it talk back to you.

No touching your phone or taking it out of your pocket required.

edit: also, no need to downvote this guy, it was an honest misunderstanding.

[dotBen]

Thank you for your answer - it does sound like you've tried hard to overcome the issues and I'm sorry I've not yet tried your app.

How does this work if I have my phone set to turn off after x mins of activity and/or screen lock?

[sskates]

If you have the "turn-on when driving" setting enabled, then our app will acquire a CPU wake-lock that keeps it running (this is not a big drain on the battery, about 1% per hour). Every three minutes we'll poll the GPS to see if you're driving and then start the application up if GPS indicates your speed is above 10mph. When it starts up it'll also notify you that it started up by speaking aloud to you.

If your phone is entirely off (and not just sleeped/screen locked) then there's nothing we can do about that... :)

Also if you have more questions, start a new comment thread in this post- the reply timeout makes replying super slow.