Siri Gets Thrown In The Ring Against Android’s Voice Actions In Latest Motorola Campaign [Video]

(8:39 am PDT, Feb 28th 2012)

Siri Gets Thrown In The Ring Against Android’s Voice Actions In Latest Motorola Campaign [Video]
While Siri seems to get all the attention when it comes to voice actions, Motorola wants to remind people that Android not only does voice actions, but does them extremely well, if not better. At least that’s the message we’re getting out of Motorola’s latest campaign pitting Android’s voice actions against its top contender Siri. Motorola runs through a slew of voice action challenges using three different Motorola phones and the results are impressive. I’m blown away by how fast both OS’s perform the tasks given and it’s an excellent reminder of the fact that Android has been perfecting voice actions for quite some time. I’m betting there are a lot of you that didn’t even realize your phone could do the things your about to see. Check out the videos after the break.

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  • Andy Miller

    I think motorola is missing the point. sure, their phone can do these things faster, but look at how precise you have to be with your commands. Siri is able to decipher everyday speech. 

    • 12yake

      No, it’s not. I love my iPhone and I love Siri, and I realize she is still in beta, but I have to speak very clearly and make sure I enunciate in order to ensure that she understands what I’m saying. I cannot speak to her in my everyday tone and expect her to get everything right, because she doesn’t. 

      • http://twitter.com/WINDOWSMUSBEDIE David Edwards

        What Andy was saying is that you can ask Siri, “Do I need an Umbrella Today?” it will respond i.e. “No, it is going to be Sunny and dry in Los Angeles” or “Do I need a coat today” it will respond “No, it will be warm in Los Angeles”. Of course, it will show you the next few days of weather.  And yes, you still need to give Siri a little bit of a sharp tone, but I have a felling that when it comes out of beta, you won’t need to do that.  Plus, I remember when I had my Droid 2, I would go into the text app and say: “Hello, how are you doing today?” and it would translate “Hello, As said in the doing day” because it would pick up a BOATLOAD of background noise, and Siri really doesn’t.  I’ll be driving, and ask Siri something and some else is talking in the background, and Siri still understands just what I’m saying.

        • Iucidium

          smoke and mirrors.
          siri probably only gets: do, I, umbrella, today.

          • M. Niazy

            Sometimes it gets the whole thing right, but even when it doesn’t, it still figures out what you’re trying to say, and that’s reason enough to favor Siri; I’d like to see Android setting me an alarm at a specific time without having to memorize specific commands for it. “Wake me up in two hours” “Set an alarm for 9 PM” “Cancel my 9:30 PM alarm” “Remind me to go to work 7:30 today” “Play xxx playlist and shuffle it”

            If that’s what they showed in their ad, I’d be impressed.

  • Mohamed Mesbah

    OK… let try this again vs My jailbroken iphone 4S SIRI

    • Iucidium

      Jail broken isn’t standard out of the box though.

      Better luck next time.

      • http://twitter.com/WINDOWSMUSBEDIE David Edwards

        Ture, I wouldn’t even judge Siri jailbroken.  It would be unfair to tell you the truth.

      • Kr00

        Neither is a 12 month old HTC still waiting for ICS. Rooting is the same as jailbreaking.

        • Iucidium

          These voice commands you see have existed since gingerbread – on ALL ANDROID DEVICES.

          Try harder.

  • ddevito

    Howard Cosell says: 

    “Down goes Siri, Down goes Siri”

  • Andrew Craycraft

    “All screen images simulated” in the disclaimer at the end of the videos. Lets try real world scenarios and see how they compare!

    • ddevito

      you’re right – Siri isn’t that accurate or available. :p

  • TTTNL

    I find this very, very weak marketing of Motorola. When you have to compare your own product to someone elses, just shows the iphone is considered the best

    • ddevito

      Actually, it’s effective. It pins their product against the king in the public’s eyes. And wins no less.

      • TTTNL

        OK then, everybody sell your iPhones we’ve got a new kingphone.

      • Ed_Kel

        You realize that you just agreed that iPhone is king, right?

        • ddevito

          I said in the public’s eye. I’m not in the general public

          Reading is fundamental- you should try it sometime

    • giriz

      So, you agree than Windows is better than Mac ?

  • http://twitter.com/GeekJenJen GeekJenny

    The videos are rigged. The video wiggles in a way that does not correlate with the movement of the hand, pixels do spill over the screen border, the screen is artificially blurred, the iPhone is used with an unknown WLAN (a/b?) connection, the Android uses LTE, the background noise causes Siri to listen longer for commands as it is a cloud NLP algorithm while the Android system uses a fixed command code structure running locally (therefore limited). 

    tl;dr : The videos are crap.  

    • Iucidium

      Rofl. Tell Siri that

    • http://twitter.com/WINDOWSMUSBEDIE David Edwards

      Your right, I want a REAL test between the two!  Same Wifi, same questions are the same time.  That would make it a little more fair.  Also, have the test done by a neutral party.

  • erics72

    SIRI is pretty good, especially with the voice recognition, in the sense that you don’t have to be specific in pronunciation.  Speaking normally works about 90% of the time.  However, the amount of time it takes SIRI to respond is pretty slow.  Voice dialing was twice as fast on older iPhones.  As well, even with the option to use SIRI in lock screen turned ON.  You still can’t text or listen to text messages unless you unlock your phone.  Defeats the purpose really.  Hopefully, Apple fixes these issues when they finally release a “full version” of SIRI in their next update.

  • Excalibear

    We already know about voice commands, Macintosh has had them all the way back to the Mac LC if i’m not mistaken. The difference with Siri is the comprehension of natural language: i.e. asking the same question in different ways.

    • Kr00

      True, but the voiceover utility and speakable items hasn’t been considerably updated over that time. If they can bring Siri type speech recognition to the Mac, as they should, then you would see a marked increase of sales to sight impaired users. Imagine, pressing one key, telling Siri on your Mac, to open a new mail message and then go on to dictate a whole email. Even able body users would want this too.

About the author

Vincent MessinaVincent Messina has been writing and evangelizing about Android for the past three years. When he's not playing the part of "Loki" to his 5 and 4-year-old, he can be found here, covering all things Android. He adamantly believes Android has the greatest community around and can be harassed at any of the following locations: Google+, Twitter.

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