Meet the new iPod Shuffle: It talks to you. Which is very cool. But more importantly, voice-enablement in Apple Inc.’s smallest music player could be a harbinger of things to come in the iPhone 3.0.
The Shuffle’s VoiceOver feature tells you the artist and song title when you hold down the center button, in 14 languages. Hold it down a bit longer and it will start naming playlists. Click the center button again when the engine says the name of the list you want to listen to.
All of this is a boon to Shuffle owners that might have had a certain ennui about not being able to see the song playing or scroll through visual playlists. But it’s also interesting because of the potential to expand this talk-back feature to he iPhone.
Voice search, speech-to-text and other voice-to-device interactions are becoming more and more common. But imagine the possibilities if the iPhone could speak back to its user: Search results could be read back, text converted to voice, there could be a voice-scroll function for sorting through applications, or spoken turn-by-turn directions. All very useful while driving or multitasking, for the visually impaired, or those with disabilities.
Besides the new Shuffle, Apple already includes VoiceOver in its desktop and notebook OS; could the iPhone be next?
