Comparing Yahoo and Google's Voice Search Applications
At the end of last week, Yahoo! introduced an update to their iPhone application (iTunes URL) which now includes the ability to perform web searches using only your voice. This is the first real competitor to Google's Mobile App, whose voice recognition technology came to the iPhone back in November of 2008. Now the only question is how do these two apps compare?
About Yahoo! for the iPhone
If you're unfamiliar with Yahoo! for the iPhone, the first thing you should know is that it's a very different type of app than that from Google. Where the Google app's primary focus is on search, Yahoo's approach is to deliver a sort of "one-stop-shop" type of application. In fact, the Yahoo app could actually replace a handful of the iPhone applications currently cluttering up your homescreen. It provides a number of features including access to news, email (Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, or AOL), social networks (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, and others), RSS feeds, sports scores, stock quotes, movie theater info, weather, blogs, an address book and calendar, Yahoo! Instant Messenger, and - oh yeah - web search too.
Google vs Yahoo!
When we reviewed the Google Mobile App last year, we were pleased to discover that it worked surprisingly well, especially if you're giving it typical search queries like "movie showtimes." Before testing out Yahoo's app, we again put Google through its paces and found that it only occasionally stumbled, usually when giving it specific proper names - like those of small, local restaurants that weren't national chains, for example. It also had trouble identifying a theater chain called "Muvico" - it delivered results for everything from "medicare" to "mini cab" no matter how clearly we spoke. That said, Google's voice recognition still did a decent enough job, if not perfect.
With Yahoo's app, getting a search started takes a few extra taps since you're first asked if the app can use your current location (tap). Next, you have to tap into the search box and then press a button to speak (tap, tap). When you're done speaking, you have to press the button yet again to signal the end of the query (tap). Alternately, you can press and hold the button and release it when you're done speaking. Either way, Google's app is much simpler - you just tap the voice search button and you're off.
Yahoo's search results, though, are a bit easier to read thanks to the larger font size used. For local results, the address, phone number (tap to call), and ratings are displayed just like with Google. However, where Google offers a link to "get directions" right from the search results, Yahoo goes for giving you nearby cross streets instead (e.g."between S. Bradford and S. Lincoln Ave"). You can also choose to see all the Yahoo results on a map, although this is less preferable to Google's expandable "view map" links which display each individual listing on a map that appears below the result just by clicking on a plus (+) sign.
If you scroll further down past the local results in the Yahoo app, there's a section called "Websites" which lists the relevant websites for your query. Past that is the "more results" section which lets you re-query other verticals like News, Photos and Images, Wikipedia, and Yahoo! Answers. At the very bottom, is an "Also try" section where you'll find related queries. This is similar to Google's layout which also starts with local results, then websites, and finally related queries. However, in Google's app, the results look more like what you would typically see if on your PC, but the Yahoo app breaks them up into more delineated sections.
As far as the actual voice recognition technology, Yahoo's app did a good job. It correctly understood all the same queries that we tried on Google and it even nailed the oddly difficult "Muvico" query without a hitch. We know that the Google app struggled with accents, but we haven't had a chance to test and see if Yahoo's app did any better with this issue (if you have an accent, give it a shot and let us know in the comments!).
Overall, Yahoo's app isn't too bad, even with the extra taps, but there are still a couple of ease-of-use features that will have us launching Google for our search queries. However, given the numerous other features in Yahoo's app, we might find ourselves using it quite a bit. And it will be nice to have access to this new voice recognition capability while we're there.
If you've tried both apps, let us know what you thought. Which do you prefer?
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
Weird, Techcrunch reviewed this app's voice rec. compared to Google and totally panned the accuracy, rating Google's speech tech much higher. Now i'm totally confused! Someone should make audio recordings of queries and run the same waveforms through each system, to get a more accurate comparison
@Bob: That's a great idea! For the record, I only tried 10 different searches - hardly a statistically relevant amount. However, unlike TC's test (actually MC - they did 3 searches), I didn't test it saying "blah, blah, blah" and "This is a story all about how, My life got flipped-turned upside down") like they did. Instead, I tried the type of searches that I would probably use *in real life* like "sushi restaurants," "starbucks," "muvico," "showtimes for star trek," other names of local restaurants and bars, etc.
I agree with Bob. And do appreciate these comparison write-ups. For those of us making buying (or download/installing) decisions, these are gold.
"Google's primary focus is on search" - I'd say Google's focus is on $$$ via traffic via search
Posted by: Mike Riversdale
|
May 26, 2009 1:45 PM
@Sarah TechCrunch reporting being unprofessional and somewhat unreliable? I have to say, I'm not exactly shocked. Still, it would be nice to see an official test along the lines of what Bob suggested.
Yahoo actually released their voice-enabled search application, OneSearch with Voice™, quite some time ago. It was unveiled at CTIA in April 2008 and predated Google by several months. Prior to that release it was assumed wide-open web search was not really feasible using speech. The industry then sat up, took notice and a frenzy of research ensued. The product reviewed here is a second generation version. There are two technologies to look at here; speech recognition and search results.
Google has built their own speech recognition capabilities while Yahoo works with an outside company called vlingo. Given this is a mobile application, the acoustic challenges to accurate recognition can be daunting at times. In a car with people talking, kids yelling, windows open, music playing accuracy is rendered suboptimal. This is more of a limiting factor than the technology itself. Speech recognition in good conditions can work surprisingly well.
Other serious players are waiting for monetization to be made real. It will be interesting to watch the adoption of speech in mobile web search.
Luckily I have no accent at all, so it recognised my request for restaurants in Crouch End immediately — very impressive. Sadly Florians, the first suggestion, closed down in October last year, and the second, Pick More Daisies, shut up 5 months ago in January. Otherwise it's great. I just don't believe it can be useful, timely or relevant without accurate current data, that's all.