Questions on specific use of Voice Search and Voice Commands

[Sergiogio]

Hello,

I just ordered an Xperia ZR.
I have few experience with Android, old version 2 something. And I never used the Voice Search.
I have read the getting started of Milominderbinde (thanks!) and understood some things, but I still have doubts.

So, I am studying as a Gardner in Germany. My German is not perfect so often I feel the need to quickly search for the meaning or translation of a word.
I understood that I can search quite easily in the web with the integrated Voice Search.
But for what concerns apps it is not clear to me how much can I control them with my voice or search in their content.
For example an offline dictionary app: can I ask the phone with my voice to open the dictionary and to search for that word? Or must be the App to offer this service?
I bought this phone also to make photos to plants or to phases of the job, and then add notes to these photos, and to search later this picture for example by saying the name of the plant.
Is this possible?
I would really like to get the best out of this phone concerning Voice Search and Voice Commands, so I appreciate if you can help me to understand what I need to get the kind of control I wish. Voice Search, Google Now, Vlingo, specific Dictionaries or other Apps...
If this is already explained in some tutorial please could you provide the link? I could not find any.

Cheers and thanks for sharing.

 

[Sergiogio]

Was there something wrong in my question?
If the info is already completely and clearly available elsewhere, be please so kind to tell me where.
I do not mean to bother with asking obvious things, I have read what I found, and I have found it not clear enough.
Thanks

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! It's not that people are ignoring you--it's that your question is a little hard to answer. Although voice commands and voice search have advanced a huge amount over the past couple of years, there's still plenty of room for improvement (which I'm sure Google is working on). At this point, Google Now's voice commands and voice search are limited to certain functions, which you can learn more about here: http://forums.androidcentral.com/ambassador-guides-tips-how-tos/300182-guide-google-now.html You can ask for a definition of a word when online, but there's no offline dictionary functionality. I can't tell you if there's a 3rd party dictionary app out there that gives you offline voice search capabilities.

You won't be able to control 3rd party apps using Google Now's voice commands. The ability to control those 3rd party apps by voice will be wholly dependent on those apps' voice support, if any. Most apps out there won't have their own dedicated voice controls.

 

[Sergiogio]

Hello! And thanks for the answer

Oh, I had no idea it was a complicated theme.
I was sure the voice search functions were already something advanced.
It makes me a bit sad to see that it is not so.
I thought there was some integrated function of the Android OS to search among the files (for example pictures and notes) in the Handy. I mean, like the search function of Windows...
Just dreaming?
I mean for example if I take a picture of a plant and add a note to it (or give a title to it) with its name, can I search it by saying its name? Does Android/Google offer this function as part of the OS, or do you know of any app which can do that?

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm not sure that what you're looking for is available yet. I experimented a bit on my phone using Google Search--you can definitely search your phone for files using a search command, but it usually requires you to manually select the Phone option on the bottom bar. I tried commands like "Search my phone for xyz" or "Find xyz," and these only gave me web searches. The only thing that it seemed to find with a command was when I said "Find Muse," which brought up the band Muse's blurb and an option to play a song on Play Music.

But even if you could successfully voice search for a photo, I think it would only search for titles, not for notes attached to it. I'm not aware of any app that can do this.

It's a bit funny that you were expecting voice search to be more advanced on smartphones--I'm actually pretty amazed at what they can do as it is!

 

[Sergiogio]

Well, the fact is, I am out of all this since years, so now I come back and start reading of voice commands, voice search, online and offline search, and I make myself the idea of something more than what it is
I hope the voice functionality will be improved soon! For me it makes absolutely no difference how many 3d videogames can a phone play (I do not play) if then it cannot help me much more than other (much cheaper) phones in searching for something quickly...
For example, I am even trying to understand if I can use the sony smartwatch to search for words to translate instead of taking the phone all the time. This would be awesome.

 

[Rukbat]

It's not the voice capability itself - compared to 30 years ago, it's a different universe.

There are 2 problems to getting what you want, processing power and storage. Even a fast quad-core phone doesn't have as much processing power as an i3 Intel CPU. And we'd need a LOT more storage to store all the words you want your phone to understand. And probably a neural net app (which means a lot of RAM) to do the actual voice processing. "Open the pod door, Hal" is still a little way in the future if Hal can fit in your shirt pocket and run for 12 hours on a single charge.

 

[Sergiogio]

Hmmm. Ok, Got it.
It looked easier in my imagination.
Speaking of Voice Search (not voice Command) I thought it would have been needed just a sort of indexing service like in Windows, to make the search faster, and I thought that this index would be a sort of text file (few Mb).
For the Voice Command, I thought there would be a precise language (so not to need a IA in my pockets). For example, "Execute" or "Open", to open a program. So for example, "Ok Google" make Google in listening mode, then I say "Execute" and it already know he must open something, then I say "Calendar" and ready.
But well. I do not want to write a useless thread of "I thought".
It is enough for me to know that a function is or is not available. No matter how easy or difficult it would be to do.
But if my thought do not sound useless, and somebody wants to talk a bit of what would be possible or not, how easy, how interesting etc, I am in.

 

[Rukbat]

There are apps that can do parts of what you want - they're called assistants, and there are a few of them on the Play store. Download the free ones and play with them.

 

[Sergiogio]

Hello again.
I have more questions: do you know if with Google Now I can, for example, with a Bluetooth headset, ask google to translate a german word, and hear the translation, all without ever taking the phone in my hands? I mean, phone in my pocket, "ok google", then a command for translation (still no idea, reading slowly info here and there), and hear the result.
Possible?