Nuance has rolled out its newly minted Dragon Mobile Assistant, a voice assistant app for Android devices.
The new software is designed to recognize natural speech patterns when accepting commands and executing a variety of tasks. Similar to Apple’s Siri, users can book calendar appointments, dictate messages, update Facebook and Twitter, obtain GPS directions, find businesses and lots more.
The software can be woke up from standby using a voice command – meaning you don’t have to press a button to initiate a command. So you can initiate a text message while driving even if your phone is set to “sleep” mode. This obvously isn’t the only Android voice assistant available, but Nuance is one of the best-known companies in the industry – having coded software for both PCs and Macs over the past decades.
I actually use a Nuance product every day in the form of Dragon Naturally Speaking – which allows me to dictate rather than type.
It should be noted that Dragon Mobile Assistant will likely face the same potential issues as Naturally Speaking – namely, how well the system works for you really depends on how you speak and your accent. You have to speak clearly and enunciate well or the software tends to choose the wrong words.
However, with a little practice, you can certainly use Nuance’s products much more easily and quickly than typing (pecking?) away at a virtual keyboard.
Dragon Personal Assistant is available as a free download in English for devices running a minimum of Android 4.0. A broader launch with support for additional languages is expected before the end of the year.
