When Apple launched Siri last month it sparked the desire for many to turn their mobile phone into a personal assistant. Siri is great, but only for those people lucky enough to get their hands on an iPhone 4GS. Many hoped Apple would offer a version of Siri for older iPhone models, but Apple has since announced that it will not make Siri available for iPhone 3G, 3GS or 4 owners.
This leaves millions of people who don’t want to spend the money on an upgrade, or are locked into an existing contract, longing for a Siri alternative.
Fortunately, we have good news. Vlingo has offered iPhone customers a voice-powered Assistant for years, and its full functionality is available for everyone – iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S. Better still, Vlingo is free for all on the Apple AppStore.
The Vlingo Virtual Assistant can help you do many of the things that Siri does, like…
Send messages (SMS or Email)
Search the web
Find local businesses
Get directions
Voice dial
Vlingo can even do tasks that Siri cannot, like update your Facebook status or send out a Tweet, all with a simple voice command.
One of the industry leading awards has kicked off its 2011 nominations and we want you to help us win! “The Mashable Awards is a community-nominated voting program that recognizes the companies, people and projects that made the biggest impact on the digital landscape this year.” We are asking all of you, our loyal supports and users, to nominate Vlingo as the “Most Innovative App” of 2011.
Here’s how it works. Nominations are accepted through Friday, November 18. Simply click the big blue buttonto above(you can’t miss it!) and you can automatically cast your vote for Vlingo! After November 18, the Mashable’s editors will select the top seven finalists to move on to the next & final round beginning on November 21. Help us become a finalist by casting your vote today!
Vlingo, a Boston area voice recognition start-up, isn’t sweating the introduction last week of Apple’s Siri voice action and artificial intelligence system. In fact, the start-up saw its best week last week with five consecutive days of record usage: voice actions were up 50 percent daily over the previous high, the company told me.
Vlingo, which puts out a handful of voice recognition and virtual assistant apps for various phone platforms, is on a tear with 550 million voice actions in the third quarter of this year, up from 200 million in the fourth quarter of 2010. It also added 2.5 million users in the third quarter. The company has had more voice actions in 2011 than in the entire history of the company and the fourth quarter is shaping up to be another record breaker for Vlingo.
It’s a good sign for Vlingo and backs up CEO Dave Grannan’s initial hope that Siri would be a rising tide that lifts all voice technology boats. Of Vlingo’s 10 million users, 4 million are on the iOS platform. Vlingo’s latest boost may also be due to the company’s decision earlier this month to make its app completely free to help it compete with Siri. Said Grannan:
“The last 10 days have truly shown that the market has embraced the voice-powered Assistant. Apple announcing that Siri would be the centerpiece of the new iPhone 4S has had nothing but a positive impact for Vlingo. Vlingo saw its usage doubled following the announcement, and we have seen interest and activity at all-time highs in the week since. Clearly, Vlingo has been identified by customers and the media alike as a longtime leader in the market, and presently the best alternative for anyone without an iPhone 4S, including all Android and BlackBerry owners.”
Apple’s big extension into voice recognition should be a boost for Vlingo and Nuance as well as Google Voice Actions on Android and the speech recognition system built into Windows Phone 7.5. As I’ve written before, voice is increasingly a mobile technology and as most of the major smartphone platforms are now incorporating voice actions, it’s going tochange the expectations of users, who will increasingly look at interacting with their phones through voice. Take a look at this infographic charting Vlingo’s growth.
Mobile phones past and present allow users to communicate while on the go. Just five years ago the cachet of a mobile phone was all about the look and feel of the phone, simple features such as calling and texting, and to some extent basic services like downloading a ringtone. Today, services, applications and content (games, music, videos), are what make a mobile phone sell.
Consumers want and need their mobile phone to not only make calls, but to manage their everyday tasks – send texts & emails, search the web, find directions, book flights and hotels, add appointments to their calendars and more. You get the idea. Smartphones changed the game and they continue to do so. The higher screen resolution and increased processing power of each succeeding generation of smartphones make these tasks easier to accomplish while on the go. Obviously, these increased capabilities also enable apps like Vlingo—that is, voice-enabled assistant applications—to not only meet your needs but try to anticipate them.
About a year ago, I wrote a post about a watershed moment in the mobile voice industry when Google introduced Voice Actions. It would seem that we’ve come to a similar point for the “virtual assistant,” as Apple prepares to release the Siri-powered Assistant with iOS 5 later this month. While exactly which of the rumored features will be in the final version remains up in the air, the “Let’s Talk” themed invitation more than hints that voice is a significant part of the announcement. We can feel confident that the folks in Cupertino will have integrated Siri’s technology beautifully into the core iOS experience, and that the Apple Assistant will substantially raise the profile of voice-enabled virtual assistants as a mobile service.
While there is no debating Apple’s ability to package technology in a way that transforms it into a standard for consumers, we think that we have a unique ability to drive innovation within the industry as the last truly independent player. The value of that innovation has manifested itself over the last year through partnerships like the one we have with Samsung, to power the Voice Talk feature on their flagship Galaxy S II phones worldwide. This past August we reached a couple big milestones as our Android application completed over 25M voice commands and read over 30M messages aloud via our SafeReaderTMfeature—both monthly records – just one year after that product became available for free. We couldn’t be more appreciative to those early voice pioneers on Android, who set out on this journey with us. We brought “firsts” like our hands-free InCar mode, and we remain the only voice solution that integrates with leading mobile services like Facebook, foursquare and KAYAK. You, in turn, have rewarded us with your incredible loyalty and we owe you the world for it. See snapshot above of our success on Android.
Our success on Android has only deepened our desire to innovate, push forward and deliver. We’ve really just touched a fraction of the total addressable mobile phone market. Millions of users worldwide are demanding that Vlingo’s Virtual Assistant be made available to them. In this spirit, we’d like to announce today that we have a brand new, next generation voice product that we will release on the iPhone platform this fall. While we’re excited that the awareness of voice-enabled apps is about to get a boost thanks to Apple, we have been hard at work creating a whole new class of applications that will once again advance our industry.
Many might question why we would choose iOS to launch this new product as Apple prepares to make a big splash with new native functionality. Truthfully it was a question we thought about deeply ourselves. The last few years Apple has continued to surge past its competitors by delivering products that technically beat user expectations. So why would we try to compete? The answer is simple. Vlingo delivers choice that you simply cannot get from these “OS integrated” options. Last year when Google launched Voice Actions we knew it was a great product yet millions of people have chosen Vlingo because of the differentiated services and versatility that go well beyond Google’s solution. Consumers have clearly stated that we’re not in a “one size fits all” market. The same thought process applies here. While it is almost a guarantee that the Apple/Siri product will be good, it’s also known that deep OS integration limits the user’s options. With Vlingo you will continue to get functionality that allows you to do things in places that you simply cannot do with the “native” solution.
When Google Voice Actions came out, we felt it was unfair to ask our users to continue to pay for our application. We wanted them to be “free to compare.” We feel the same way about our iPhone product, and have pushed a new version to the App Store that will enable the full Vlingo functionality at no cost. Note this will be available as soon as Apple approves this price change. To those of you who have supported Vlingo over the last three years on the iPhone platform, many of whom paid for the service – we owe you an incredible amount of thanks. We know that this decision will upset some of you, and we can only ask that you apply the same standard to applications that you do to the phones they power. In the same way that the release of a new phone usually coincides with a price decrease of the older model, we feel it is time to take a step forward into “what’s next” in mobile voice. We hope that you continue to find value in our Virtual Assistant, and hope that you are excited to join us as we set out on this next phase of our journey this fall.
We have a major release planned for the months ahead, one that we think will define the next generation of voice-powered apps. More information will come about how you can get it, but we wanted to kick things off by asking for your input and giving you a chance to win some great prizes for sharing your thoughts.
We’re launching contests on Facebook and Twitter and it is easy to win:
Four weeks with new questions and prizes each week. Winners will be selected from entries on both Facbeook and Twitter. It’s as easy as answering one question and you’re entered to win one of the weekly prizes.
Week 1 (9/27 – 10/3): $25 iTunes gift card
Week 2 (10/4 – 10/10): $50 iTunes gift card
Week 3 (10/11 – 10/17): $75 iTunes gift card
Week 4 (10/18 – 10/25): Grand Prize – an Apple TV player
You can enter to win multiple times, so be sure to answer a question each week.
Tired of your old phone? Time to upgrade? We’ve got a great reason for you to make a trip to your mobile carrier’s store today. Vlingo proudly partnered with Samsung to develop Voice Talk, a native feature on Samsung’s flagship device, the Galaxy SII. Check out the video below to see for yourself how it works. We think its a must have.
The wait is over! Vlingo is very happy to announce it has once again added support for the HTC Sensation. HTC made an update on their end that solves all the crash issues Sensation users were experiencing. We know that it was inconvenient and somewhat annoying but we really appreciate everyone’s patience. Please pass the word!
Click here to download Vlingo’s Virtual Assistant!
It has been reported that the average person makes or receives 8 mobile phone calls per day. That is roughly 2.4 billion phone calls across the 300 million mobile phone user in the U.S. The average mobile phone user in the U.S makes 250 phone calls per month or 3,000 phone calls per year. With 300 million mobile phone users in the U.S., the number of mobile phone calls made per year is a staggering 900 billion!
Feature phones and smartphones fill the pockets and purses of men & women everywhere looking to connect with friends, family members or co-workers while on the go. Would you like an easy way to quickly make a phone call without having to filter through hundreds of names and numbers in your address book? How about a virtual personal assistant?
Using voice recognition to call your contacts has never been easier (or safer!) when using Vlingo’s Virtual Assistant. Whether you are using an Android, BlackBerry, iPhone or Nokia device you can simply say “Call mom”, call Tommy mobile” or “call pizza” to instantly place a call to anyone in your address book or Vlingo’s infinite cloud-based address book.
Excitement has been brewing for MONTHS here in the Vlingo offices. We’ve been crossing days off on our calendars waiting for the launch of the much anticipated Samsung Galaxy SII. It was set to be launched in the US on Monday but due to severe conditions on the east coast from Hurricane Irene, Samsung had to postpone the launch until yesterday. Despite the 1 day delay, the launch went off yesterday without a hitch. The device is the thinnest 4G smartphone on the market, has a powerful (and colorful!) screen, allows users to multi-task and comes complete with awesome features designed to give Android smartphone users an incredible experience!
With Voice Talk you can access the voice commands menu by pressing the home button twice, no matter what application you’re in. From the menu, you can activate voice actions by saying, “Hi Galaxy,” and you’ll be asked what you’d like to do – make a call, send a text, get driving directions, or write a memo right with your voice. Pretty cool right?
For the grand unveiling, Samsung hosted a press event and invited top notch reporters to check out the new phone and all of its features! Check out a few pieces on Vlingo Voice Talk!
The Samsung Galaxy SII is one of the highest selling smartphones in the world today. Be sure to get your Samsung Galaxy SII as soon as it hits your carrier stores!
Even the fastest texters in the world sometimes runs into situations when their hands are tied and sending messages becomes problematic. Maybe you’re walking down a crowded street, navigating through traffic, or carrying your books to class. We’ve all been there before.
Vlingo, long a leader in using voice to text technology to make messaging easy when you’re on the go, now makes it easier than ever to send a text now using your voice and only a few taps on your iPhone. Check out our brief demo video below to see how Auto-Listen makes messaging as easy as one, two, three.
About Vlingo
Vlingo is a Virtual Assistant that turns your words into action by combining voice to text technology, natural language processing, and Vlingo’s Intent Engine to understand the user’s intent and take the appropriate action. Simply speak to your phone to connect with the people, businesses and activities that are important to you.
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Are you one of the millions of iPhone owners who has not upgraded to the 4S, but think you deserve the help of a Virtual Assistant?
