Full voice SMS app...

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
Can anyone recommend an app for SMS texting that is fully voice integrated? I have seen Vlingo, but this appears at first glance to be send only. I'm really wanting to find an app that works both ways. I'm wanting something that you can record a txt, like Vlingo, but something that will also read a received txt. Additionally, the ability to reply to a received txt would be ideal. If Vlingo can actually do this, just call me stupid and I'll be on with it. If there is something better I would really love to know aobut it. Thanks in advance.

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    Quote:
    Originally Posted by svnipp View Post


    Can anyone recommend an app for SMS texting that is fully voice integrated? I have seen Vlingo, but this appears at first glance to be send only. I'm really wanting to find an app that works both ways. I'm wanting something that you can record a txt, like Vlingo, but something that will also read a received txt. Additionally, the ability to reply to a received txt would be ideal. If Vlingo can actually do this, just call me stupid and I'll be on with it. If there is something better I would really love to know aobut it. Thanks in advance.



    The Google Voice app is supposed to do much of that. But on Android, of course.



    However, I tried Google Voice on a Nexus One when I was without my MBP for 48 hours*, and the news for this technology is not good... in plain English: it SUCKS! Pardon my French.

    Why? Well for starters it recognises – when it does! – only American English! No other of hundreds of languages. None. Not even 'British' English. Secondly, it misinterprets just about every second word you dictate! Forcing you to carefully proofread, and manually correct those errors. Which eats time! And, thirdly: your dictations (an art that requires a learning and training curve! No shortcuts) are analysed and interpreted, a.k.a. 'processed', by an application that lives in Google Voice's cloud. I.o.w.: all the data involved is pumped up and down between your phone and that cloud all the time. Maybe even circling the globe a couple times for good measure, in the process. That will hardly speed it all up, will it?



    And indeed: it doesn't. It's actually slow as molasses!



    In fact it turned out that composing and sending off a 2 sentence email took me 3 times as long using Google Voice than when I simply typed it from scratch with 1 finger on a not tactile (i.o.w. it feels like dead) teensie weensie touch screen keyboard...



    It felt like cleaning the house with a toothbrush. So, yes, it works, in absolute terms. But not IRL.



    And I don't think traficking all that data over various nets does much good for the data plan you may have with your phone ISP either. Or for the security of the whole shebang!



    To be sure, I have the strong impression that voice recognition technology (for the mass market) hasn't really progressed at all since 1992, when I last tested it IRL!

    To me that is astonishing and a bit unsettling.





    *Wow, man, that sucks too! I had withdrawal symptoms within a couple of hours! Seriously! It's a scary and humbling experience!
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