While users of the Apple iPhone 4S have been using Siri as a voice activated personal assistant, Android users have had Google Voice Actions. Not promoted as much as Siri is by the gang at Cupertino, Google Voice Actions can do many of the same things that Siri does. According to a pair of videos made by Motorola Mobility (soon to be owned by Google), Google's technology is faster than Apple's. Motorola took a pair of its handsets, the Motorola ATRIX 2 and the Motorola PHOTON 4G, and put it up against Siri in a multi-round battle.
The first challenge compared how fast both Google Voice Actions and Siri took a spoken message, turned it into an email, and sent it. The second battle was to see which was faster in coming up with navigation to a specific direction. The next contest was to see which technology was able to be the fastest in sending a reminder for the phone's user. The last battle was for Siri and Google Voice Action to see which would be the first to go to Motorola.com. Siri went to Google first (how ironic is that!) while Google Voice Actions went straight to the mobile web site for the manufacturer.
The same tests were done with both Motorola models and each time, Google Voice Actions finished first. The videos are interesting because it shows that with all the handwringing done by Android users and manufacturers about Siri, and with all of those upstart apps being developed to challenge Siri, there is already an Android app that competes with Apple's voice activated personal assistant. Your Android phone must be running Android 2.1 or higher to use Google Voice Actions.
