Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

If you're like me, you have an iPhone and you like it. I started with an iPhone 3G back in the day and recently upgraded to the iPhone 4. It's a great phone. It's a great mobile device. It's just great.

Each weekday I spend anywhere from 60-90 minutes in my car driving to and from the office. I have a handy Kenningston cradle that holds my iPhone 4 front and center while I drive. I use the Jawbone ICON (Thinker) to take incoming calls. It's a driver's perfect world... almost. What can cause frustration is an incoming text message or the "bing" of an incoming e-mail. Currently there is no good way to process and respond to a text message or read an e-mail while speeding along at 60+ mph. There are some that can use one hand to drive and one hand to navigate their iPhone. While I might be able to do that, I'm not willing to press my luck by taking my eyes off the road for more than a second, let alone read while driving.

What the iPhone needs is true V.R.S — Voice Recognition Software. While the iPhone can read what is on your screen by turning on the VoiceOver feature in Settings::General::Accessibility, it is cumbersome to get there and doesn't deliver all I need. True V.R.S. would allow me to bark simple commands in plain English and the iPhone would respond in kind.

"Read new e-mails"

"Listen to new voice-mails"

"Call Brooklyn Decker"

"Map 1122 Boogie Boogie Avenue, Los Angeles, CA"

"Play Kenny G"

Well four out of five is a good start. If Apple wants to stay ahead of the game, I don't think they should wait for a third party developer to develop true V.R.S. Instead Apple should make a V.R.S. part of the iOS — somewhat like Core Audio and Core Video are developer tools built into the Mac OS. Then each developer can make real voice commands work in their apps as well. I can just see it now...

"Drive me to Spacely Sprockets"

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