The BB10 Voice command sounds very similar to Siri
Nowadays, most modern smartphone operating systems have powerful Siri-like voice commands built in but to see a familiar-sounding voice command coming to the latest Blackberry 10 platform is nothing new.
Mobile phone voice commands have been around for a while now with iPhone 4S’s Siri launching last year and Samsung’s S Voice on the Galaxy S3 launching only recently. Now, Research In Motion has released an Operating System update to the Blackberry 10 Dev Alpha (a developer unit) which includes a voice command function with voice that sounds terrifyingly similar to Apple’s Siri. It seems like RIM is also tapping into Nuance’s text-to-speech technology like Apple, Google and several Android manufacturers.
The voice command feature is accessed by holding down the play/pause button on the Blackberry 10 developer unit. There seems to be no visual interface yet but a robotic voice can be heard that asks you to ‘say a command after the beep,’ u can then issue commands to the phone, which are followed up by a Siri-sounding voice.
After using the voice command feature it becomes pretty clear that RIM’s voice command needs a bit more schooling. For example, when searching for ‘Blackberry,’ it displays a universal search page from the web, Blackberry App World and also items on the device. However, when you attempt to message or call people from the contact list, it failed, also the voice command feature falls apart when asking it to cancel the commands.
Remember, the feature is still in the beta stages and will most likely be fully revamped in its final release.
