SPOTLIGHTm

Say Where! for iPhone

What is it?

Say Where! allows iPhone users to search Google Maps, Yelp, Yellow Pages, and Traffic using voice recognition technology in place of the phone’s much maligned keyboard. Many have said that the iPhone is a fantastic piece of technology, but a horrible communication tool when it comes to text and email, Say Where! attempts to take typing out of the equation for many simple search tasks.

How much does it cost?

Free.

Who is it good for?

People who are truly incapable of typing on iPhone who frequently search for business information and directions. Drivers who absolutely need to search for something and cannot fumble through iPhone’s keyboard. Gadget people who love to show off new things, even if it takes a bit longer and a handful more patience than doing it the traditional way. People who like to “wow” their grandparents with the wonders of modern technology.

Summary

Say Where! is not a need application, but an “Oh, that’s cool” application. If you’ve adapted to your iPhone keyboard and corrective text, chances are you can search and find everything on provided by this application faster by doing it on your own or with one of your nifty applications. Because the application does not automatically switch to speakerphone when you are speaking the name of a business, address, or intersection, you’re often forced to speak really loud into the phone’s microphone to pick up the sound.

Despite the slightly confusing navigation, the results are cool when it works, but this application is not for the self conscious because it will get you some weird looks on the street as you announce to the world where you’re planning on going for dinner. One of our biggest gripes has to be the fact that separate windows outside of the application are opened and loaded via Safari, taking away the speed from an application that is a great idea in theory, but just ok in execution.

Keep it or Delete it?

Delete it.

Speak loudly and carry a big stick

With an application like this, there is no doubt that its usefulness will be measured by the performance of the voice recognition software. The voice recognition is a cool novelty, but if it doesn’t work, there’s no reason for you to use it.

The verdict? It works… most of the time… as long as you speak loudly and clearly into the microphone. When we say loud and clear, we mean getting up close and personal with your iPhone - Jessica Chobot PSP style.

You hold down the blue button on the screen, lean in close, close your eyes, and seductively say, “BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS!!” into your phone’s microphone and release your intimate embrace after it recognizes the name. Most of the time, Say Where! gets it right, which is pretty impressive in itself. However, with one wrong interpretation of your voice, you’ll probably have taken longer to search for the city and state of your location than it would have taken for you to find your final destination using a similar application. But… you spoke it, didn’t search for it, which we guess is pretty cool.

For the most part, Say Where! worked for us when it came to voice recognition. With some patience, clear enunciation, and loud voices, it was impressive to see how the software picked up on business names (especially those that are clearly proper nouns) and even picked up on regional pronunciations of cities (”Woosta, Massachusetts” correctly pulled up “Worcester, Massachusetts”).

One of our main gripes with Say Where is how navigating through the application actually took a few minutes to learn. Since nearly every iPhone application is based on a Wii-like “All Play” pick up and play model, it was frustrating to have an application that didn’t make it obvious how to search for a new location. Maybe it’s just us, but in our 15 minutes of fun with Say Where, it wasn’t all fun.

After your first search, your result is saved and available for Google Maps, Traffic, Yellow Pages, and Yelp, which in theory, is great. You can get all the information for one location after searching for it once.

However, it’s not initially clear that you have to hit the wrench (which to us, means “Settings”) at the bottom of the screen to access any of the search results other than the one you’re currently using. So if you’re on Google Maps, but you want to see the Yelp rating, you have to hit the wrench to switch over to Yelp. Don’t find yourself stuck like we did.

Additionally, it’s not obvious that to find a new location other than your first search result, you have to press the white area of the search result. Intuitively, it would make you think that by pressing the name of the restaurant, you would get more detailed information on the restaurant (perhaps, you’d get what you get when you hit the “wrench”). But alas, no. By tapping the name of the restaurant you searched for, you access the search screen to find a new location.

Thank goodness the blue book on the right still means “Bookmark,” which shows your recent relevant searches (Yellow Pages part of the application shows business listings, not addresses done on a Google Map search). Clearly, the navigation is not obvious and it could really benefit from a “New Search” button and a changing of the icon with the wrench at the bottom of the screen.

Another gripe that we have with the application is the fact that the results open up new Safari windows. Instead of somehow taking us to a nice iPhoned page or the app version of the same data, a new window has to open and load the result from Yelp, Google Maps, Traffic.com, or Yellow Pages. Not only does Say Where take longer to search for things, but the results take about 10-20 seconds to finally load after you think you’ve found what you’re looking for.

With Google Maps already being enabled on the iPhone (complete with traffic data), along with strong, quick-moving applications for Yelp and Yellow Pages already in existence, the fact that you have to open up a new window that actually has to load to get the information you’re looking for is really a bummer. Even if you’re not a great typer and the speech recognition saves you some time, the page load time will likely be greater than the amount of time it would take for you to open up a different application, type in the name of what you’re looking for, and find it over there.