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Alternatives to Siri discussion

spinedoc77

spinedoc77

macrumors G4
Original poster
Jun 11, 2009
11,488
5,413
After realizing Google Now/Search was a poor substitute for a personal assistant I decided to search around a bit more for a good Siri substitute. I haven't really seen any threads to this effect and figured it would be a good place to start a discussion.

I've downloaded some personal assistants, but haven't played much with them. I'll update as I test them out. Anyone else find some good ones or have experiences to share?

Also if anyone has solved the ability to map the bluetooth headset button please post, this is something I miss from the iphone/Siri.

Dragon Mobile Assistant

Maluuba

Assistant
 
tbayrgs

tbayrgs

macrumors 604
Jul 5, 2009
7,467
5,097
I haven't used it myself but have seen favorable reviews online so you may want to checkout Utter.
 
spinedoc77

spinedoc77

macrumors G4
Original poster
Jun 11, 2009
11,488
5,413
Utter looks cool, I DL it and am going to try it.

Dragon Assistant so far is very good, although it can't search your calendar/reminders. For voice writing texts it's superb. One caveat, the feature where it listens for your voice to wake it up, even if the phone is off, eats up a TON of battery. Just having it on 10 minutes and my phone is down to 78%, this is with the screen on and doing a lot of playing/downloading though. Battery manager says Dragon is responsible for 19% of that, and the screen is 33% so it's eating up 2/3 of what the screen eats up, which seems kind of a lot. It also hogs up your microphone, so no other app can use it. Google search, for example, gets an error "can't connect to microphone" until you turn it off.

edit: CPU use seems kind of high for Dragon also, just having it idle it was reading around 36% to low 40's.
 
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kenknotts

macrumors 6502
Sep 23, 2013
276
0
matttye said:
Tried many when I had Android. Nothing compared.
Click to expand...

This is true and Im pretty sure its because Apple has patents on certain features Siri uses in regards to a personal assistant on a phone. Same way Google had to drop the system wide search on Android phones
 
M

matttye

macrumors 601
Mar 25, 2009
4,957
32
Lincoln, England
kenknotts said:
This is true and Im pretty sure its because Apple has patents on certain features Siri uses in regards to a personal assistant on a phone. Same way Google had to drop the system wide search on Android phones
Click to expand...

I also think Siri has better 'conversation' support for lack of a better term.

E.g.

Me: "send a message"

Siri: "who would you like to send it to?"

Me: "recipient"

Siri: "and what would you like the message to say?"

Me: "blah de blah"

Siri: "your message to recipient says 'blah de blah' shall I send it?"

Me: "yes."

I can't remember if that's it word for word, but that's basically how it works. It's brilliant.

I love that you can set relationships as well. "Xyz is my girlfriend" followed by "call my girlfriend" will then call Xyz.

And now you can even tell it how to pronounce names. It just gets better all the time :D
 
W

walie

macrumors 6502a
Nov 15, 2010
676
2
matttye said:
I also think Siri has better 'conversation' support for lack of a better term.

E.g.

Me: "send a message"

Siri: "who would you like to send it to?"

Me: "recipient"

Siri: "and what would you like the message to say?"

Me: "blah de blah"

Siri: "your message to recipient says 'blah de blah' shall I send it?"

Me: "yes."

I can't remember if that's it word for word, but that's basically how it works. It's brilliant.

I love that you can set relationships as well. "Xyz is my girlfriend" followed by "call my girlfriend" will then call Xyz.

And now you can even tell it how to pronounce names. It just gets better all the time :D
Click to expand...

Google now:

"Send message to recipient blah blah blah"

All in one message, why should it have to take 3 separate exchanges?
 
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matttye

macrumors 601
Mar 25, 2009
4,957
32
Lincoln, England
walie said:
Google now:

"Send message to recipient blah blah blah"

All in one message, why should it have to take 3 separate exchanges?
Click to expand...

Siri supports both.

You can skip a step in my previous example and say 'send a message to recipient' then it will just ask what you want to send, as well.
 
b166er

b166er

macrumors 68020
Apr 17, 2010
2,062
18
Philly
I find Google and S voice to be ok, but Siri understood me almost 100% of the time, while the options on my S4 do not.

I do like the broader features on Google Now, and I love Now in general. But I do think Siri really has the idea down better as a whole.

I really want to fast forward to the day where I can just say "Buy two tickets for the 7pm movie tonight" and it's all done.
 
T

TheRealCBONE

macrumors regular
Nov 26, 2012
127
39
Some people really want to chit chat with their phone. I prefer Star Trek to Star Wars. Short sweet commands instead of having a conversation about what you want. I gave siri a try and I thought it sucked. Between dragon and Google now, all my current phone assistant needs (scant as they are) are being met.

I don't think the siri crowd is going to get an exact android dupe while apple is so lawsuit happy.
 
Technarchy

Technarchy

macrumors 604
May 21, 2012
6,753
4,927
Google Now would be closer to the mark if it had some semblance of contextual understanding and could be launched from the lock screen.

I do not like how it seems to treat everything like a Google web search query. It's more like an encyclopedia than a digital assistant.

And S-Voice is abysmal.

Siri is one of the things I look forward to having again when I return to the iPhone. I used it daily with my 4S and iPhone 5.
 
M

matttye

macrumors 601
Mar 25, 2009
4,957
32
Lincoln, England
TheRealCBONE said:
Some people really want to chit chat with their phone. I prefer Star Trek to Star Wars. Short sweet commands instead of having a conversation about what you want. I gave siri a try and I thought it sucked. Between dragon and Google now, all my current phone assistant needs (scant as they are) are being met.

I don't think the siri crowd is going to get an exact android dupe while apple is so lawsuit happy.
Click to expand...

It's not exactly that I want to chitchat, for me at least. I just like that I don't have to remember commands and exactly what information to provide.

If I don't provide all of the necessary information it will ask me for what's missing. I also don't have to specify commands and can trigger things in a number of different ways, e.g.: -

1. Email
2. Send email
3. Send an email
4. I want to send an email
5. I would like to send an email
6. Email (contact)
7. I want to email (contact)
8. I would like to send an email to (contact)
9. Send an email to (contact) for me

Basically it usually "gets you" no matter how you specify the task you want to do. You can use short sweet commands if you want, but you don't have to remember exactly what to say.

Also, if you have to string everything together in one line it can get complicated and there's a bigger margin for error.

Imagine:

"Email (contact) work subject Hello there body How are you doing?"

This works fine but if you were dictating a fairly long message, it would become annoying if it got the body right but misunderstood the contact, or subject or something and you had to start again.

With Siri you can say "Email (contact) work subject Hello there" and it will then ask what you want to put in your email.

Or if you want to speak more naturally, you can say "Email (contact) at work with the subject Hello there"

It's just way more advanced.

Only thing it's missing is offline support!
 
spinedoc77

spinedoc77

macrumors G4
Original poster
Jun 11, 2009
11,488
5,413
I've been playing with some of these alternatives and they all suck in some way or another. They all seem to use a huge amount of battery, and exponentially more battery when they are set in listen mode.

Dragon mobile assistant: Uses battery even not in listen mode, when in listen mode forget about it. It's just ok, very good voice recognition but it's a bit bulky overall in function. In listen mode it also takes away microphone function from the phone so, for example, google search or keyboard microphone input don't work, very bad.

Utter: VERY cool concept. Voice output is horrible, staticky and barely understandable, and very robotic sounding, like something out of War Games...Would you like to play a game?... It's VERY customizable, you can give it custom commands. It's wonky though, half the time it won't hear my commands, the listen mode eats up battery (so does non listen mode, but to lesser extent) and doesn't wake up most of the time. I will play with this one a bit more as it's fascinating and has some promise, it just isn't ready for prime time.

I've played with google now/search a bit more as well. It has some very weird features, like if I say I want to text, it asks me if I want to edit the text, I have to touch the screen to say yes, then I have to hit the microphone input key, then the send key, etc. Very unstreamlined, just make it all automatic. Voice dialing is the same, the times when it doesn't do an internet search and actually pulls up my contact I have to hit the touchscreen to dial, Christ can you just dial the freakin number?
 
tbayrgs

tbayrgs

macrumors 604
Jul 5, 2009
7,467
5,097
walie said:
Google now:

"Send message to recipient blah blah blah"

All in one message, why should it have to take 3 separate exchanges?
Click to expand...

As matttye specified, you don't need to do it all separately. The biggest advantage Siri has is the ability to complete the action after only the single touch to launch it. As accurate as Google's voice command functionality is, the need to touch the screen to confirm a request defeats the purpose of using it hands free in the first place.
 
gotluck

gotluck

macrumors 603
Dec 8, 2011
5,717
1,260
East Central Florida
tbayrgs said:
As matttye specified, you don't need to do it all separately. The biggest advantage Siri has is the ability to complete the action after only the single touch to launch it. As accurate as Google's voice command functionality is, the need to touch the screen to confirm a request defeats the purpose of using it hands free in the first place.
Click to expand...

I read reports that for some reason the MotoX doesn't require that extra touch - does anyone know if that is true?
 
spinedoc77

spinedoc77

macrumors G4
Original poster
Jun 11, 2009
11,488
5,413
LIVEFRMNYC said:
I disagree, S-voice has been good for me at hands free texting and calling. That's about it though, I don't use it for anything else. It's the only thing I used Siri for on the 4S too.
Click to expand...

I've never used a more horrible program that I can remember than S voice. Although LG's Voice Mate is pretty close. I'm not sure why it functioned so badly for me, it just wasn't very intuitive, but I think I was just spoiled by how awesome Siri was. The voice recognition was also pretty bad.
 
ReallyBigFeet

ReallyBigFeet

macrumors 68030
Apr 15, 2010
2,956
133
Dunno, but S Voice via my Gear and Note 3 have thus far worked flawlessly for voicing text and email messages.

Just downloaded EasilyDo Personal Assistant. Not sure what it foes just yet.
 
M

matttye

macrumors 601
Mar 25, 2009
4,957
32
Lincoln, England
LIVEFRMNYC said:
I disagree, S-voice has been good for me at hands free texting and calling. That's about it though, I don't use it for anything else. It's the only thing I used Siri for on the 4S too.
Click to expand...

S-voice is just a skinned Vlingo app, and both are horrible at voice recognition.

IMO of course.
 
L

LIVEFRMNYC

macrumors G3
Oct 27, 2009
8,878
10,987
spinedoc77 said:
I've never used a more horrible program that I can remember than S voice. Although LG's Voice Mate is pretty close. I'm not sure why it functioned so badly for me, it just wasn't very intuitive, but I think I was just spoiled by how awesome Siri was. The voice recognition was also pretty bad.
Click to expand...

matttye said:
S-voice is just a skinned Vlingo app, and both are horrible at voice recognition.

IMO of course.
Click to expand...

Yea S voice was pretty horrible at detecting what you say. 50% of the time the wrong words would appear when texting. I've noticed a huge improvement since I picked up the S4. Rarely do I get mistakes in voice recognition now.
 
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