The Future iPod…Today (No iPod Needed)
I saw about 50 articles today on the next generation iPod that will ’speak’ the name of the song you are listening to. The thing that got me is that everyone is going nuts over this as being revolutionary. David Pogue even quoted Apple as saying “the new Shuffle is the world’s first talking music player, thanks to a new feature called VoiceOver.” First? Wow, that’s impressive.
Then I whipped out my Fuze, went to Settings – Voice Command and made sure the Media selection was checked and the option ‘Announce media selections’ was checked and enabled Voice Command. I also mapped by PTT button on a short press to launch Voice Command then opened Windows Media Player and went to town.
What can Voice Command do with music?
Say
- Play anything to play all media.
- Play music to have Voice Command guide you through selecting music.
(Variant: Play media). - Play album, to choose from available albums.
(Also: Play artist and Play genre). - Play <album> to listen a specific album.
(Also: Play <artist>, Play <genre> and Play album by <artist>). - Next Track, Previous Track, Play, Pause, or Stop to control Windows Media.
- Turn Shuffle On to play tracks randomly.
(Also: Turn Shuffle Off). - What song is this? to hear about the current track.
(Variant: What track is this?). - Play Artist
- Play Scott Bishop Band
- Play Album by Scott Bishop Band
- Play Rock
- What track is this?
- Stop
Examples
- And since you probably always have your phone in your pocket what’s the sense of having a second device taking up room especially when you already have its best feature? Voice Command has been out a few years now and comes standard on the Fuze so it’s nice to see that Apple finally invented it.
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Comments
Cory Don’t worry, next feature Apple will invent will be copy&paste. And the press will go nuts over this new feature, and call it “innovative” and “sexy”. And the epic flamewar battle between Apple fanboys and the rest of the world will continue.
Joking aside, the only thing Apple is great at doing is style. They might not have invented mp3 players, but they certainly made them chic.
Dr. Rob IN YOUR FACE, IPOD!
This was a great article. Thanks for the review of the possible voice commands.
Cory, great comment, too – LMAO!
Reluttr Well the shuffle does have one feature you didn’t mention 
Its the unique “aka annoying” Morse code type control scheme. Oh and the fact apple is forcing you to use proprietary headphones or a proprietary headphone “adapter”.
Seriously what would it had hurt to put the controls ON the device instead of forcing the consumer to use their headphones which has crappy control schemes to begin with.
Leave it to apple to take something quick and easy to do and gimp it up to the point where you have to stop and fiddle with a single action button with status light that reports what it is doing in a series of blinks.
chronster Voice command crashes when it tries to make a playlist for too many files. Apple will probably have this technology for as many files as it can store. That’s the only achievement I see in it.
bpm2000 this type of sh!t will go on forever.
until it happens on the ipod, the iphone, it isn’t a feature the public is aware is available to them.
most of my friends dont even know i have gps on my fuze (*and previous.. oh waht 3 other phones?) and they always ask someone with an iphone for directions/maps. its hilarious.
ramil I love voice command. I have notifications turned on. When i’m in my car my fuze announces high priority voicemails and emails and reads the subject lines over my bluetooth speaker. It also reminds me of appointments. It really impresses anyone in the passenger seat.
David K tabcounter – you need to use a physical key and assign it to vociecommand. Then while using Windows Mobile hit that button and talk to your phone…it will respond
rama naruli You are kidding me. “Voice Command” is basically “Speakable Items” that’s been shipping on the Mac since the early nineties. You can write a script to make any list of commands speakable with a dynamic grammar. So Sorry, Apple did bring the command and control to the market first. YOU are lying and get your facts straight. Furthermore, Voice feedback is a passive act and not and active one. With voice command, you need to speak and if you don’t have a close-talking microphone, it sucks. With voice feedback you simple listen and navigate. It is also well known in the spoken language research that most folks do not clearly remember all artist names, song names in the library. This in turn, leads them to make mistakes articulating, which then leads to misrecognitions. This is a well thought out move by Apple, to trade off storage costs with display costs, by providing an alternative interface, while maintaining profit margins. “Voice Command” may be good, but very few use it on a consistent basis.
Anthony.
Apple = Joke and sheep will be sheep….