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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Is Google Voice Search really better than Siri? It seems much less able to handle things like followup or anything that requires context. "OK Google" is much more likely to just give me a web search, while my wife's iPhone seems to more often give helpful spoken results.

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In my limited use of both, Google is better at voice recognition. I'm not sure why they haven't built a true siri competitor.

What would constitute a "true Siri competitor"?

Currently, on my MotoX, I can do all common tasks like calendar entries, reminders, calling people. emails, text messaging, searching for information etc. etc. The kickers here are:

I can do all this WITHOUT TOUCHING the device.

I do all this in my Indian accented English (Siri is useless to me and my entire extended family for this reason alone).

This device came out more than a year ago.

I bought this device for half the price of an iPhone 5s unlocked.

The real question is, can Apple come up with a real Google Now competitor, deeply integrated with their devices, before this window of opportunity in the wearable devices blows by them.

Out of interest, is it quicker to do these things by voice than just using the phone with your hands? I always try texting by voice and when it gets it wrong (often!) I find myself just using the phone normally and am reluctant to use the voice features again.

Does anyone else have this experience?

I've been using Siri for years. Texting is occasionally hit or miss (although simple things like "On my way" or "Be there in 15" are reliable), but there are a ton of things that are way quicker than typing (and completely reliable). "Directions home", "Movies playing near me","Open app X","What was the last Tigers score","Call Amy",most Google searches...

Maybe it's my flat midwestern accent, but I find that Siri gets it right almost all the time with these things, and I find it way more natural and fast than hunting for an app icon, especially while driving/walking/biking.

I use voice to set alarms ("set an alarm for 5:30") and to open up Pandora when I'm driving. Both work great. Texting is a little more hit-or-miss but it's normally pretty accurate. I try not to text and drive anyway, even if it's done by voice.

Texts and emails are not 100% accurate of course, especially given my accent and given that proper nouns can be problematic. But it's still faster for me to start these activities by voice and just fill in the corrections. Searching for trivia (to settle random arguments etc.) is always, always faster with the OK Google interface.

For almost any activity on the phone, hunting for an app icon and finding the appropriate context in the app (e.g. searching for the correct contact to send the message to) etc. are usually the most time consuming and frustrating activities. Those are nicely bypassed (with a very high level of accuracy) by the no-touch interface of the MotoX.

Creating calendar entries and setting alarms etc. are two other activities where natural language queries are pretty much the best UX compared to any screen based UI on any device. Google Now has extremely high accuracy in recognizing these tasks.

Google's Voice Search seems like a Siri competitor to me - I can set alarms, request directions, call someone, etc. etc.

The thing is, I never do. Neither Siri nor Google Voice Search have ever seemed that useful to me because I'm usually in a public setting (an open office included) where I don't much feel like chatting away to my phone. Google Now is a much, much better implementation of this 'smart information provider' concept.

I've been using Siri for years and I get the trepidation, but it's really not awkward to do voice commands around people. In social situations, I look at it as simultaneously letting people around me know what I'm doing with the phone while I do it. Instead of saying "OK, let's see a movie. Here, I'll open Fandango and see what's playing around here." (or just pulling up the phone without telling them, which I'd regard as weirder, personally), I say "Yeah a movie sounds fun 'What movies are playing nearby?'" and we're immediately looking at movie times together. YMMV, but I find breaking eye contact for 15 seconds a lot more socially intrusive than a 2 second voice command.

I also find Siri works find with a low voice that nobody notices if I'm around people but not socializing (eg the open office). It just sounds like I'm taking a quick, quiet call at most.

The situation you're describing is one where the other people around you care what you're doing. In the vast majority of situations that isn't the case. The guy sitting next to me at work does not want to hear about me planning to see a movie later on tonight.

Google Now's "just give me appropriate information without me even asking for it" is probably the most badly marketed "magic" technology in the consumer technology space. It's hard to even describe it to people who have never experienced it. But suffice it to say, more than once, I've warned other people (usually non Android users) about their pending flight delays or cancellations before they knew about them simply because I had an email with their itinerary in my mailbox.

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