From the “we’re all friends at the end of the day” file: Google Inc. this week introduced a free voice-enabled search application for the Apple iPhone that allows users to speak Google search terms into the phone rather than typing them. The move has set blogs a-twitter with What it Means.
Some have breathlessly considered this turn of events odd given Apple and Google’s sort-of competitive situations (the G1 vs. the iPhone), though Google is a highly public fan of Apple and vice versa. Others have heralded the application as groundbreaking functionality. But that idea breaks down because voice-enabled mobile search is not new: Microsoft has enabled that in Windows Mobile for over a year, and Yahoo!’s mobile app contains it as well.
You could say it’s important because it voice-enables no less a cultural entity than Google, and so a lot more people (well, iPhone users) will be using it than ever before. That certainly holds water. The sheer ease-of-use aspect to it is almost irresistible. Who wouldn’t want that? Well ... the British, that’s who.
Because the factor that is perhaps the most interesting in this launch is this: The application is as American as apple pie. It gets confused if you throw a foreign accent at it.
British newspaper the Telegraph found it pretty difficult to get the results one would want after testing a range of regional U.K. accents against the application, to put it mildly. When “iPhone” was spoken into the interface, some of the priceless results included:
Surrey and Kent accents: "Einstein," "MySpace," "my sister"
Yorkshire: "bonfire"
Scottish: "sledding," "sex"
Welsh: "gorillas,” "kitchen sink”
So, is the application jingoistic? Nah. Just gives people an excuse to practice their American accent.
