So has anyone actually purchased it and tried it out? Is it worth it?

MrYuk

Has anybody seen or heard of a App for Text Message Groups or anything better them the current iPhone SMS messager. I've seen the installer one on the other forums. But how about an AppStore one?

oceanthrsty

The only times I've ever used Voice Dialing on mobiles has been using a Bluetooth headset (i.e. when driving and phone is in my pocket or bag). Why in Lucifer's name would you use a voice dial app on a phone where you have to hit the sleep button, slide to unlock, click on the app, and then click again to say a command. In that time, you could just fucking dial the person already.

Bluetooth voice dialing FTW!!! Yet another reason iPhone is half-baked still.

mobilehavoc

I'll just let my fingers do the dialing for free..

iaintgoingthere

@Chromeo: You should check out the iTunes reviews for a lot of the movies on there. A lot of 1 star reviews are only complaining that the movie can only be rented!

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

Opinions are like Assholes...they all stink.

That said, here's my smelly opinion: Price point should be considered when writing a review of a product, but only after having actually used said product. Otherwise, you might as well just write a review of what color it is, or the name.

Chromeo

The problem is people want everything for free. if your so pissed off about the price of things go jailbreak your phone use installer. You decided to buy the phone, apple did'nt force you to buy it! you knew what it had and what it does'nt have. Apple can do whatever they want its their product. Also reviews about price are just plain stupid cause we can all see the price yea its over price SO FREAKIN WHAT! don't buy it then. I rather have reviews about the actual app not tons of little reviews saying "OVER PRICED" . Get over yourselves!

mercury69

@Joseph:
originally they had that feature (# of downloads) when the App Store first launched, but they discontinued it? I'm guessing making that information public would have been great for the users like us; maybe not so great for the developers (the unsuccessful ones, anyways).

dogcow

@eallan:

My, aren't WE the anti-capitalist.

Who the hell cares if someone wants to charge 99 cents for a flashlight app. They're not FORCING YOU AT THE POINT OF A GUN to buy it!! You don't like it? Fine. DON'T F'ing BUY IT!

At the same time, those are supposed to be REVIEWS of the apps! Don't post a "review" saying "It should be free", or "Why would anybody pay for this?" Saying that tells me ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about how good the app is, or if it crashes, or if it does what it's supposed to do, etc. Reviews are supposed to help other users decide if an app is good or not. Obviously, you are child, who doesn't understand the concept.

stymyx

@dogcow: I was thinking that, but what would be better it so show now many people downloaded the app. That way if you see an app with 300 reviews saying "its too expensive" or even better "sux" and only 3 downloads, you know you're dealing with people that probably don't have much knowledge of the applications domain.

Joseph

Wake me up when there's one with speech recognition (no prerecorded names) that will also work with a bluetooth headset.

snubz

@Dj75728: Huh. if you prefer vocalized contacts, you could do that yourself by recording your own ringtones.

"Hey, self. Bob is calling. No seriously, like right now. Bob. Bob. BOB. BOB. PICK UP FOR BOB ALREADY."

Personally, i prefer giving unique ringtones to my frequent contacts.

Aristeia

@banmojo: I'd pay $5 for vocalized contacts. That sounds awesome. I have a whole bunch of ringtones for all the people who call me most, but actually saying the name would be more convenient.

Dj75728

25$ is retarded imo, and further more this is an app Apple should f$#@ing PAY for and include as part of their next firmware upgrade. Geebus flippin Christmas people, it's not like the phone is cheap to begin with, then add on the monthly usage charges (WITH tax fmita) and I have YET to buy a SINGLE app. F$#@ that.

25$ is riDIculous. An app that VOCALIZED the name/contact of whomever is calling whilst listening to ipod with iphone in pocket WOULD be worth 5$ to me (I hate having to pull that damn thing out to see who's calling when I have my hands all covered in KY...errr...mud from pulling WEEDS. Yeah, I was pulling on my weed :^)

banmojo

@dogcow: That's how the review system works in iTunes throughout. It makes sense with music and movies since these things can be had elsewhere, but they need to rethink this for the applications.

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

@babj615:

Exactly. Microsoft Voice Command works incredibly well, with no need to record a name for each of your contacts (which would be a ridiculous waste of time.) This is yet another reason why the flexibility of Windows Mobile is keeping me from buying an iPhone

RalphWiggum

@babj615: But then i'd have to go back to Windows Mobile.

PASS

dreux36

$25 is just bad business. They will sell very few at that price, when in reality, if they made it $5 they would get tons of people willing to try it for a finsky.

tucker

GARBAGE.

Micro$oft actually has them beat, hands down, with Windows Mobile Speech recognition.... requires no pre-recorded commands, and allows you to operate many functions of the device, with outstanding accuracy....

PASS

babj615

there's now posted a pretty extensive non-glowing review of the operations and glitches of the program. For $25, I'm gonna wait for improvement.

i_prefer_sasquatch

Trials in the sense of a fully working app with limitations (ie only works for 2 names), as oppose to a time limit (like 30 days), and Im cool with that.

I won't "review" the product by saying it's too pricey, but I have no intentions on spending $25 to use voice dial.

tvasser

@karasu is my homeboy:

Including the price of a gadget in a review would be worthless if all the review HAD was the price, wouldn't it? The price is something you can see for yourself. For a bunch of users to give one star to an app they have never used makes the review system pretty useless, because the stars end up being based on nothing other than the price.

And yes, offering trials would help. But I bet we'd still get a bunch of nimrod's who didn't bother with the trial posting reviews solely based on the price because if they think the price is too high, they just have to share that opinion with the rest of the world. How could I live without their opinon of the price!?

CyberSi

God, i fuggin hate that. My BlackJack also lacked voice dialing, and you had to pay 30 bucks or so to get such a program.

This is crap. Voice dialing is a free feature on basic phones. Why the bloody *hell* do we have to pay extra for this? How was this not originally included w/ the iPhone, or at least developed for *free*?

Seriously, i don't mind paying a bit for extras, but this is one of those things that should be standard.

Imagine paying 30 bucks extra to get voicemail. Or, you know, a contacts list. Argh, this is such crap.

Aristeia

@tptcat:
I'm saying you can't "review" an app without using it.

I think trial offers would be great-hope Apple implements them. (They seem to have the technology built in)

dogcow

@dogcow: So you can't review the app on the perceived value for the money? Offering trials would help solve this.

tptcat

@ustna: Reading the article may be a good idea.

"There's another current SpeechCloud voice dialing app on the App Store, and even though it may be free, it's got an average rating of 2.5 stars and reviews saying that it's pretty lousy."

tptcat

@CyberSi:
Exactly. They are called "Customer Reviews", not "Random Comments by Bystanders" :P

dogcow

$25 for voice dialing?

...really?

Telling us to ignore the one stars is pretty silly. If I was offered a great sandwhich for $50, I'd give the overall experience a low score, too. The price is part of a review, or else expensive gadgets would fair much better if no one cared that a $2,000 computer has $1,000 computer features.

karasu is my homeboy

@eallan:
How can you decide that an app is too expensive if you haven't even bothered to download it?

dogcow

I agree that comments should be restricted to people who have actually downloaded the app. I don't need a bunch of reviews from people telling me they think the price is too high. I don't flipping care if you think the PRICE is too high, I want to know if the app works or has issues. I can see the price myself, I don't need anyone else's opinion about the price.

CyberSi

mmmm, voice tags! Welcome to 2002!

bpapa9013

What about SpeechCloud? It's free in the app store.

ustna

@dogcow:

Why? People should be allowed to say if they think something is too expensive. I'm sick of people trying to steal $1 for a freaking flashlight application.

eallan

Apple should restrict user comments to those who have actually downloaded the app. They definitely have that information-why not put it to good use? It would benefit everyone.

dogcow

$25 is a bit extreme, maybe $5-10 since you actually have to record their name first.

dead_red_eyes

$25 and you have to record the name first? Yeah. I'll pass.

Also, I think a 1 star review based solely on price is totally warranted. Maybe they should allow a free trial (a lot of app store apps should do this) so you see what you get for that $25.

tptcat

@impliedsurprise: Bah. You win.

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

I'd agree many app store reviews are idiotic (like all the AIM reviews of ppl saying "IT LOGS ME OFF WHEN I CLOSE IT")... but there *is* something to be said for too high price tags (like this IMO) having their reviews reflect that.

I might pay $10 for something like this if it worked well... but $25? No way.

Keebler

@Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!: right, but does your se t610 command the unadultered love of millions of fanboys and girls? I think not.

impliedsurprise

i think all those 1 stars have a valid point. $25 is pretty steep for a program that was free for jail-broken iphones. $25 is expensive regardless for a cell phone program. there's a reason most apps are in the $5-$10 range, and most of those should probably be 99 cents or $2. anyway, voice dialing should have been built in anyway - maybe it'll be included in 2.1, i guess the programmers are trying to get rake in the profits while they can.

scudsone

The longer I have it the more clear it becomes. My least used feature? The phone.

92BuickLeSabre

I'd be willing to pay $20-25 for voice dialing. I have before. Difference was it was speaker-independent. Having to record voice tags is too ridiculously cumbersome for my taste.

Pixelologist

No, sorry. My SE T610 does this for free.

Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!

wow, $25? really?
Someone will do it cheaper... eventually...

s017jrs

$25 is a lot for voice dialing. Does it do more than voice dialing?

Dj75728

@mobilehavoc: My $60 SonyEricsson T616 had a lot more BT profiles than the iPhone. BT voice dialing was great, especially in the car, which, like you, is the only time I'd need voice dial, also the only time I use my BT Headset. I don't know what Apple (co-inventor of BlueTooth) is doing, crippling BT so much. It has a lot of potential uses other than HeadSets. Oh well.

DurfDiggler

@scudsome: The iPhone has been out for over a year, and all we got, featurewise, before 2.0 was the ability to make icons jiggle and the useless iTunes store. Now with 2.0, Apple doesn't have to develop any new apps, becuase the developers can do it for them (and they never really did develop any new apps since release day of the first iPhone). You really think they're gonna come out with voicedial soon? good luck with that.

tipster75

Microsoft Voice Command was priced something like that and was as easy to download from the web as Windows XP was. The only difference with MSVC was that it recognized a shit load of commands and numbers without one having to record anything. I'll pass.

apeguero

It's amazing that cheap-ass budget phones actually have a lot of these kind of features for free.

Knirfie

@mobilehavoc:
Half baked is a bit of a stretch but I gotta agree....16 touches and swipes to get to the voice dialer??? What the.....why bother. I can get to my favs quicker than you can make a voice dialer call.
But the price complaints...save it for the developer. The rest of us don't care about your tight fisted issues. We're all gonna spend when we wanna spend. Half of us paid $600 for the damn phone and now it's $300 so clearly there's plenty o folks willing to pony up the $$$

streetflyer

Actually, SpeechCloud (free) works. I was initially frustrated the first few tries. I'm a fast speaker, so naturally I decided to speak into the SpeechCloud app very loud, slow and methodical (like you do when you speak at a person who has some hearing loss). Then I read a user comment that suggested speaking as you always do. I've had a 90% success rate ever since.

fosty

SpeechCloud works well for me too - I also started talking slowly like I had to for MS Voice Command, which gave me mixed results. But if I talk at a normal cadence, SpeechCloud gets it right at least 90% of the time.

HunterST