I see from Gruber that there’s another voice recognition app out for the iPhone. Why? Do people actually want or use this stuff? I mean apart from playing around or edge-cases such as when driving (where, incidentally, hands free operation is still very dangerous).

Developing voice-recognition systems is a symptom of over exposure to Star Trek at a vulnerable age. Voice commands to computers works well on film and TV for dramatic reasons. It’s the same reason TV characters read letters out loud, and on-screen dialogue boxes use HUGE fonts. A dramatic on-screen device does not make for a good user interface design. There are three reasons why voice-recognition input is a poor choice for computing, particularly mobile-computing:

1. Everyone can hear you.
2. There are perfectly good alternatives, like keyboards and touchscreens.
3. EVERYONE IN THE DAMN TRAIN CARRIAGE CAN HEAR YOU. And if the train’s delayed by snow they’re going to get annoyed, and possibly gang-up and kill you. It will be like the Orient Express all over again, except without Peter Ustinov.

I leave you with a link to this comic, on the subject, from Joy of Tech. You’ve been warned.