Apple's Siri artificial intelligence voice assistant is almost a year old, but remains a highlight of innovation for Apple, especially in its iOS 6 update and the brand-spanking new iPhone 5.
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But how good is it, really?
Generally, we're fans of Siri, for her politeness, ability to ferret good answers out of natural-language questions and sense of humor. Apple's Siri is not, however, alone in the world of voice recognition, especially not on smart phones. Those carrying around a variety of Google Android-based devices also have some pretty powerful voice capabilities.
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With Jelly Bean (A.K.A. Android 4.1), Google significantly increased the platform's voice capabilities. Other Google partners have introduced their own brands of voice smarts. In the meantime, Siri got a bit of a brain transplant with iOS 6. In other words, the entire voice assistant game has been raised to a whole new level.
Mashable decided to put it all to the test. Armed with a handful of real-world questions, we took the streets of New York City (actually the sidewalk just outside our office) and asked three phones, the new Apple iPhone 5, Google's Galaxy Nexus and the Samsung Galaxy SIII, to listen, understand and help us find the answers.
We asked about the weather and where to go dancing. We also quizzed the phones on the leader of the free world, launched apps and even Tweeted with only our voices. When we asked about local "Subways", the phones told us about Subway Restaurant locations. When we refined to "Where is the nearest Subway Stop?" a guy walking by answered before the phones and pointed out one about 75 feet away.
Overall, the iPhone 5 with Siri and the Samsung Galaxy SIII performed comparably, while the Nexus struggled (it did make a last minute save with a perfect answer about the Yankees). One thing we noticed is that connectivity is key. When the iPhone 5 struggled for a decent Verizon connection (it vacillated between 3G and LTE), Siri slowed way down, or failed altogether. The Galaxy SIII was sometimes considerably faster than the iPhone. Other times slower.
We'd characterize the results as anecdotal and inconclusive. There are times when Siri, S-Voice and Google Voice will help you out in an instant, and others when you might be better off typing the question or, as we did, getting your information from a passerby on the street.
Take your phone's voice recognition for a spin with these questions (below) and tell us how it does in the comments.
Where is the nearest subway?
Where is the nearest subway station?
I'm hungry.
Where can I go to dance?
How did the Yankees do?
Launch Instagram
What's on my schedule?
Who is the president of the United States?
Who are you voting for this election?
What do you think of the iPhone 5?
What do you think of the Samsung Galaxy SIII?
How's the weather?
Tweet: I'm testing voice capabilities.
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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