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Comment by cryptoz | Hacker News Reader

So many puns. "Let's talk iPhone" -> "Let's talk, iPhone" (new speech functionality). It's a phone, you talk to people, you also talk to it, etc.

I would expect this to be a very speech technology-heavy event.

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Nice catch. Can't wait for Assistant.

Tim Cook's first product reveal, and the marquee feature is based around voice recognition.

Heaven help him.

If anyone can convince the mass market that they care about a voice interface, it's Apple. But there are some things not even Apple can do, and I suspect this may be one of them.

The mass market already cares about voice-to-text, it's heavily used by Android users (according to the Google-provided data).

True fact. Voice search on Android works flawlessly and I use it all the time in the car.

Except for the 30-something-item-long "Did you mean" list that forces me to look at and physically manipulate the phone, it works amazingly well.

Unfortunately that won't stop Apple from being credited with inventing/popularizing it.

Google/Android was first to market with systemwide voice-to-text. But Apple won't disappoint. I expect Apple's Assistant to be pretty impressive.

Hasn't exactly that feature already somehow failed with the iPod Shuffle, which has physical buttons again? I haven't bought or ever seen that device or the 4th gen successor to make a hands-on judgment. But it seemed like a step back from VoiceOver from the outside. (I loved my 2nd gen Shuffle!)

VoiceOver is purely text-to-speech, not speech recognition or speech-to-text.

The iPod shuffle has nothing whatsoever to do with voice control.

Edit: That is actually factually true. Not sure why some seem to think otherwise.

The 4th gen Shuffle is the 2nd gen, but slightly smaller and with the VoiceOver technology. If you loved the 2nd gen, you'll love it.

Android users seem to like their voice recognition features. If Apple can deliver that kind of quality I don’t see a problem.

I've never personally been able to get any use out of the voice control feature of iOS. In fact, after trying it a few times, the only time I invoke it now is by accident. I hope that Apple kicks some major ass on this feature and creates another "how did I ever live without this" moment.

I use it while driving to call people without having to dial with my fingers. Unfortunately once the call is placed I still have to use my fingers to set it to speakerphone.

When I can ask my smartphone "what time is the next bus arriving?" without having to touch it, that's when it's a really smart phone. I hope it's that level of a kick.

Google's voice search has been at that level for a long time now, but I get the impression most people have never tried it.

A family member tried it on an original Droid, and it was a miserable failure for her. I was a bit mystified, comparing this experience with the positive comments I'd read. Might be her voice in particular; I turned on the "personalized tuning" setting, but it did no good.

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