welcome to the funcave

in case you missed it…

a new version of mothership’s venerable voice command software for windows mobile devices has finally been released!

don’t feel bad if you didn’t know about the voice command update.

your homework for tonight is to find any significant mention of voice command 1.6 on mothership’s website.

sure, it appears in a lifecycle index of current products.

how about anything other than that?

bueller?

seriously, i’m starting to think that mothership’s strategy of non-release releases might be the hot new trend out of redmond. nice to know they’re at the forefront of something for a change.

regardless of its status as a red-headed stepchild or not…

the changes in 1.6 are relatively small…

which means that at least its incremental numbering bump from 1.5 was properly focus-grouped…

but those changes may admittedly be significant for certain folks.

for starters, this release officially supports smartphones.

also, it fixes an annoying issue with bluetooth headsets that basically makes them unusable for…well, voice commanding cingular phones.

and there has been some feedback here & there that 1.6 does not cause as much instability…altho that may perhaps be a simple placebo effect. 

unfortunately, this release still has the primary weakness of its predecessor, which is…

voice command is an unbelievably obnoxious ram hog, made doubly worse by the fact that voice command must be installed in the non-expandable-&-therefore-more-precious-than-a-solid-gold-baby system memory.

also, the upgrade costs 10 buckaroos…kinda. i’ll explain that kinda part in a minute.

now when you consider that voice command is $39.99 by itself…

steep for a mobile app, relatively speaking…

yours truly isn’t so sure what amounts to little more than bug fixes is worth parting with yet another alexander hamilton.

but hey…that hasn’t stopped folks from paying for every “new” desktop os release for the last 12 years, right? which are, when you get right down to it…mostly bug fixes.

however…here’s that kinda part…

to add insult to injury…

even if you absolutely need/want/lust for this 1.6 update…

it can only be found at handango.

and that upgrade price of 10 smackers?

looks to be valid only if you originally bought voice command from handango.

if not…you’ll need to cough up 40 bills for it!

yep…color me pissed about that, kiddos.

honestly tho…

all this is par for the course…

yet again mothership pays an amazing lack of attention to a small add-on that causes insta-sell.

whenever this happyfunboy demos windows mobile with voice command to prospects…

we’re talking folks who are…

• lawyers
• doctors
• executives
• sales folks
• real estate agents

basically anyone & everyone that mothership craves as a mobile customer…

voice command absolutely OBLITERATES the fruit-flavored competition.

and that’s because…without a doubt…

windows mobile with voice command owns!

or at least the concept of it does.

the execution?

maybe 70% solid.

but that’s nothing new for ms in mobile devices. the sheer brilliance has been staggering at times.

hands-up if you:

• lost data on a previous windows mobile device when you ran out of power
• had your calendar mangled by activesync
• remember the stellar timing of the msfp rollout

don’t even get me started again on remote device wipe.

still…

if you have never tried voice command, it’s worth trying to dig up a 15 day demo of version 1.5 somewhere.

once you gain the ability to dial hands-free without training or recording custom voice tags, plus intelligent prompting…

you’ll be ready to shell out for voice command, even with the warts.

|| posted by chris under funlab, mobility, thumbs down || || ||