Tech Tip: Voice recognition in smart phones has improved greatly over the years. Use it to access your phones features

Voice recognition has made some great improvements over the past few years.  When I first started using it on my old BlackBerry, I was able to just simply dial a few contacts in my phone book.  Although I was able to type out messages, I never found it worked all that well.  Fast forward to a few years later (That being now) and Voice Recognition not only does a great job picking up what you are saying accurately, it can do much more.

Recently I have been playing around with Google Now, which is the Smartphone assistant on Android phones.  I have been impressed with how well it works.  Not only will it do dictation for me in messages, it responds to questions I ask it using Google’s impressive search tools.  If I say “Set an alarm for 5 minutes” it will automatically open up the app, set the alarm and start it without any further intervention on my part.

Asking it questions also brings up some decent answers.  Sometimes it is just a search in Google it brings up, other times it scours the internet for my answer and tells me.  The Android blog Android Authority has a great infographic with the voice commands you can use for Google Now here.  Apple’s Siri assistant has a lengthy list of features it can also perform for you.  Here is a link to some of the commands you can provide to Siri.

Recently I wrote a blog about using voice commands whenever possible while driving instead of typing.  While talking to your phone may still get a few funny looks from others around you, it is the way we will interact with technology in the near future.