The line between voice and data communications is about to be further blurred when Apple Inc. enters the voice-enablement fray. Developers this week have uncovered voice recognition capabilities in the latest beta version of the iPhone OS 3.0. And Apple’s latest voice-Web integration announcement demonstrates that “voice recognition” is no longer synonymous with annoying phone trees and inaccurate search results. It’s actually an opportunity for service providers to deliver a true convergence story to users.
The so-called “Jabbler” functionality in the iPhone OS 3.0 hasn’t yet been officially confirmed by company spokespeople, but the folks test-driving the operating system say it’s a part of the phone-top control software – the code that launches apps and supports home screen functions. Apple is likely carrying over the functionality in the latest iPod Shuffle, which uses a text-to-speech capability to tell the listener which song is playing on the tiny, screen-less device.
Imagine being able to use speech to search for nearby restaurants, look up a restaurant review and have it read to you, voice-search for your buddy Jake in your phonebook, speak a dinner invite message to be delivered to him as an SMS, and send along the link to the restaurant menu in an e-mail, all without pushing a single button. And be able to do that from a fixed or mobile location.
Voice recognition services demonstrate the potential business transformations for operators in an increasingly data-centric world. “More than 80 percent of any service provider’s traffic and business is voice, and voice recognition plays allow service providers to monetize voice as content,” said Daniel Doulton, chief strategy officer and co-founder of SpinVox, a pioneer of voice-to-text conversion. “Consider that an SMS message costs 15 or 20 cents each, so it’s a quantitative package of value. But there’s no attributed incremental value to a minute of airtime, because of the flat-rate plans. This type of approach allows voice to be a peer of messaging rather than a poor cousin.”
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