At the 19th annual Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference, which is taking place this week in Los Angeles, Apple announced “Spoken Interface,” an upcoming Mac OS X feature that allows those with visual and learning disabilities to use a Mac through speech, audible cues and keyboard navigation. Read more at MacMinute.
Apple ‘Spoken Interface’ Technology Coming
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I hope the Spoken Interface adheres to Apples Interface Guidelines better than the Brushed Metal iApps.
>I see apple putting their fingers in more and more holes. I hope vendors don’t continue to bleed away.
Really? How many vendors do offer a spoken interface for Mac OS X? duh.
The one thing that sucks is that speech recognition and text-to-speech have been in Mac OS since 8.5 or so and still you can only get them in English (there was a Mexican Spanish version and for a very short period even Japanese). They should really try to get that working in more languages, that would be cool.
the spoken interface is completely integrated into Mac OS X. Unlike traditional screen reader applications that are designed as bolted-on after thoughts, the Mac OS X spoken interface is fully integrated into Mac OS
X providing an unprecedented level of built-in accessibility for a desktop operating system.
I don’t know really. Is this such an important feature for OSX that it needs to be tightly integrated into the OS?
I don’t know how OSX looks like internally but would it really be that hard to add it using an addon?
Wow, a lot of criticism and skepticism for a technology that Apple has not shipped yet.
There is already some rudimentary speech recognition in MacOSX but its not that good. The Chess game is a goood example. I didn’t have good results despite using a Plantronics headset and earlier versions of the speech recognition in MacOS 9 were not that great either.
Hopefully this time Apple will manage to do it right, they have had a good track record so far.
You know, you guys are funny… in my head I see an image of Scotty talkin’ into a mouse tryin’ to get the computer to work (Star Trek)…
If we don’t start the initial steps we’ll never learn to walk. Let Apple push, try… encourage innovartion(?) or at least encourage the attempts at pushin’ forward… I for one applaud people who push forward…
Don’t be surprised when you get a monthly statement from M$ for the use of there apps… first step XBox… then .NET et al…
The future is…
BTW the implementation of the brushed metal look is evolutionary, IMHO, and a much more pro/easier interface guideline that any I’ve seen in Windows, KDE or Gnome (IMHO)
Jb
Apple’s had speech recognition since at least 1994 (it came on two floppies, and even had a spanish version)
keep in mind, they didn’t say this would be the only way to use a computer, and this is by no means the absolute future of computing, simply that this will be massively beneficial to those who currently have trouble with mice and keyboards.
Kudos Apple, I bet lots of other companies would try to push this as the “one true way to use a computer”
This could be a very good thing if they do it well. I bet they wont though,and if it’s not perfect it will be horrible. There is no middle ground here. English only is a limitation, but not much of one in North America. Consider this though, if people know English as a second language how well will it work? How will it cope with accents? I can see this as being Apple’s worst mistake of ’04, although I hope for them and for all the hearing disabled people of the world they can pull it off.
Thats visualy disabled people rather, I should know better than to post pre-coffee.
This is for visual impaired people, It is a screen reader. Meaning you can navigate the Mac OS X interface without a mouse and without being able to read the text on the screen.
It actually sounds like it could be pretty good, as it is built right into the OS, and uses all the same shortcuts that normal mac apps do. As opposed to windows Text to speech solutions like JAWS, that are add-ons and quite clumbsy to use.
Dan,
I agree with you…
Apple needs to make a better computer than the wintel world in hardware, operating system and application (I am sure you know this). What competitive edge do you have when your applications are the same in wintel and macs? Apple is trying to push the boundaries by adding value to the mac and many of the software developers are really not into Apple due to market size.
I know many would disagree with me but both MS and the software developers in general are slow to innovate (I am not saying they don’t innovate) and the net gain is a “me too” product. Adobe/Avid is getting handed their lunch by Apple in the digital media world (FCP, FCE, and iLife) in lower cost and easy of use. I wont even address the digital music market that Apple has innovated them self’s into.
For Apple to succeed they cannot play by the same rules as the wintel world. They have to break rules but how far to you push it and find out that no one is writing software for your computer and that’s “not a good thing”.
I am sure that’s you’re point.
W
That’s exactly right.
The Mac is not going to have as many apps as Windows does, so it’s important that the software available is ‘best in class’. Where software developers have been lazy; offering simple ports, or versions missing features from their Windows counterparts, Apple has stepped in and put the effort in to making a much better product. They aren’t simple profit stealing exercises. They are often the applications that define why you would prefer to be on the Mac platform.
I remember this article that was posted not long ago.
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/11/12/salkever/index.php?r…
Apple has responded very quickly to this, and that’s impressive. The software is available now:
Spoken Interface is being released now as a preview version — by filling out a form on the Spoken Interface Web site, users can gain access to a preview release build, Shebanek said. When Apple releases its next major revision to Mac OS X, Spoken Interface will be included.
1/ This will give Apple a new competitive edge on the education Market, as it’s integrated in the OS and you don’t have to pay the 500 to 1000 dollars that windows equivalents cost.
2/ They do not endanger any of their developper as nobody develop any longer a similar app for the Mac.
3/ it’s integrated in the OS so any app should automatically benefits from it.
Now let’s see how the thing handle accents, or other languages.
OS/2 Warp 4 was shipped by IBM in 1996 with both VoiceType Dictation and Voice Navigation as part of the standard package.
While I’m sure those older tools were nowhere near as sophisticated as the equivalents today, I did know people back then who used them extensively, and I’ve been dissapointed to see so few other OS vendors include similar functionality in their products over the years.
Maybe the time has come for that type of voice-driven interface to become more mainstream?
How useful this could be in a mobile device!
Have been in MacOS since at least 7.5.x.. I used it on my 8500/120, back when they were NEW.
Luposian
It’s hard to make this type of thing widespread. The large majority of computer sales are to offices, and you can’t sit around talking to your computer with other people in the office and phone ringing and people talking all the time. If Apple pushes this enough and makes it a worthwhile upgrade over what they have now, they may just have an interesting angle on it due to their core userbase. It really sounds like more of a backround feature though, and not something they will make a big deal out of. For example, this probably won’t be pushed like Expose and iChat A/V were, but more along the lines of how the dock has more options in Panther than it did in Jaguar.
I just bought an iBook for my wife, and stumbled upon the Speech Recognition.
My first experience with SR was on my NeXTStation with a program call Simon Says. Now, Simon Says was a system much like “voice” dialing today on cell phones, it really didn’t care what you said, just as long as it was unique and consistent. You could say “Banana Patch” and have the phone dial the office.
The nice part of SS was that they had it integrated with the Workspace. And you could assign commands to applications. So, I could say “Mail”, and the mail app would launch or pop up. Say “New Message”, fill it out, and then “Send Message”.
What I like about Apple’s tech is that it doesn’t need to be trained (apparently). So, I can say “new mail” or my wife can say “new mail”, and it will work the same.
The nice part about SR at this level is that it eliminates a lot of toolbars and menus. You don’t need a Mail icon anywhere handy when you can just say “Open Mail”.
Command SR is different from dictation, as the vocabulary is more limited, but the domain is actually larger. Dictating english sentences is actually a problem of limited scope, and it also provides a LOT of context for the machine to “guess” the right words. Commands, of course, are more arbitrary.
Now, SR is just like handwriting recognition. It’s utter magic when it works, and completely frustrating when it doesn’t.
“Open my mail” ???
“Openmymail” ???
“O Pen My Ma il” ???
(laptop goes flying across the room)
While we have the difficulty of recognizing multiple languages, accents, and dialects (like that Louisiana [I think] town that pulled out their Voice Response system as it was having problems with the strong Southern accents of the citizens), SR introduces another problem. Or more appropriately, revisists that problem.
Assuming we have perfect SR, Ye Olde GUI vs Command Line arguments will rear their ugly heads. For a speech interface is essentially a command line without the keyboard, with the same “undiscoverability” issues that many command lines have.
Worse, of course, is that people HATE spelling things to computers by voice.
“Select star dot dee oh see” We “pronounce” acronyms for a reason.
But if we can get reliable SR with snappy response (i.e. as fast as a mouse click vs “waiting” for it to find out if it works), I’d love to obliterate my tool bars for quick voice commands.
Will, I don’t know if you discovered this or not, but to help solve your ‘undiscoverability issues’, try saying “Show me what to say” in OS X. It brings up a nice little dynamic window with all the currently usable commands.