Hands-Free Control for Siri and Voice Control
Hands-Free Control for Siri & Voice Control
It’s the stuff you see on Star Trek.
“Computer,” bee beep, “how long before we reach the Neutral Zone?”
Bee beep, “At our current speed we will arrive at the Neutral Zone in 4 hours and 37 minutes.”
“Computer,” bee beep, “what is the current stardate?”
Bee beep, “The current stardate is 41153.7.”
“Computer,” bee beep, “run a diagnostic on the anti-matter containment field.”
Bee beep, “The anti-matter containment field is functioning nominally.”
This is the kind of vocal dialog between man and machine that only science fiction has proffered for decades. It is what artificial intelligence scientists have longed for, and spent mind-numbing hours developing. It is the future we have imagined would some day become reality, when we could talk casually to our computers, and, they could talk back.
You might be thinking this is leading to some sort of hyperbolic statement about the new Siri feature on the iPhone 4S, and how it will bring world peace. Well, you’re wrong! But Siri is, as has been touted on a thousand blogs and news outlets everywhere, a revolutionary leap forward in voice recognition and artificial intelligence technology.
There’s just one big problem with all this cool new Siriness. You still have to press the infernal button!
Yes, Siri is full-on awesome in all that it (she?) can tell you about the world, your neighborhood, Johnny Depp, and whether it is raining in Blackpool, all by simply asking it. But every time you want to talk to the blasted thing, you have to either press and hold the Home button, tap the Siri mic button on the bottom of the screen, hold the device up to your ear, or click the button on the cord of your earphones.
Why the button?! Can’t we just speak to Siri already?
You might think that this is a battery issue or Apple would have done it, and you’re partly right. You might also think it’s an entitlement issue, and you’re partly right. (It’s going to space, for crying out loud – Give it a second!). But the fact is, using Siri and Voice Control on your iPhone or iPod Touch completely hands-free is possible right here, and right now today.
Brock Haymond is my younger brother, and he is a wizard. No, not like Dumbledore. Sorry. He’s not a vampire either, for that matter. But yes, he is a wizard of the programming, and the “I’ll-figure-it-out” type. One of the first things he said to me after hearing about Siri is, “Why do you have to press the button? Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of speaking to it?”
So what did he do? He made an app for that, a completely hands-free way to access Siri or Voice Control. And it is now available on Cydia for jailbroken iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod 3, and iPod 4th generation devices. But what about Siri, you ask? It’s true that Siri is not yet available for any of those devices. But those devices had a little used feature called Voice Control, which feature was invoked in the exact same way Siri is, by pressing and holding the home button. This new app invokes Voice Control simply by saying the keyword, “Siri.” No touchie necessary.
But tell me about Siri?! You ask with bated breath. As soon as a public jailbreak is available for the iPhone 4S, and/or Siri is ported back to older devices by hackers (both of which are in the works), then this hands-free tweak will likely work with Siri too. I’m giving it a 95% chance of working instantly, no update required.
In the meantime, Hands-Free Control is available for use with Voice Control. Once installed from Cydia (only $1.99), all you have to say is, “Siri,” and your device will respond with its beep, and wait for further voice input. You don’t have to touch the phone at all. It could be sitting on a table at the other side of the room, and you can say, “Siri,” and it will respond. It could be on your nightstand, in the black of night, and Siri will talk back to you hands-free. It can be in your pocket, with earphones plugged, and you just say “Siri,” and it beeps for further input.
Yes, we’ve been beamed aboard. And, yes, in the near future he’ll add the keyword option of saying, “Computer!”, and the internet will respond.
Check it out in Cydia! Just search for “Hands-Free Control.”
More information can be found at HandsFreeControl.com.
November 1st, 2011 at 11:15 pm
But what about us non jailbreak users. Is there a chance for us?
November 1st, 2011 at 11:23 pm
Sorry. Apple doesn’t allow this sort of low-level tweak natively on their devices, so for right now it is a jailbreak-only app. If Apple opens up their APIs in the future, or develops it themselves embedded in the OS, then it may become possible. But for now, it’s Cydia only.
Any particular reason for not jailbreaking your device?