Android Voice Commands
Did you know that you can make your Droid Phone do things simply by talking to it? We’re not talking about the normal way you talk ON your phone but a special way you can talk TO your phone and it will obey your Commands!
Android Voice Commands – An Introduction
This article is intended to get you started using these Commands or Actions. Here is a quick list of what some of the Android Voice Commands let you do …
- Make a Phone Call
- View a Map of Places Around You
- Start Navigation (voice guided) to a Location
- Send a Text Message
- Write & Send an Email
- Play Some Music
- Send a Written “Note to Self” Message
- Find a Website Online
- Look up a Definition
For all of the following, you start out by pressing the Microphone icon on the Google Search Widget. Then speak the following into your phone:
CALL [say a phone number or a name on your phone], i.e. “Call John Smith, mobile” – it will start dialing the number or present you with some choices if it is not sure.
MAP [say a place], i.e. “Map Parks” or “Map Stations” – you should get a visual map of where these types of places are near you.
NAVIGATE TO [say a place or an address], i.e. “Navigate to Airport” – The GPS-driven Navigation feature kicks in and gives you verbal turn by turn directions from where you are to where you said to go!
SEND TEXT TO [say a name or a phone number, then the message], i.e. “Send Text to Sample, Did you walk Question Mark” – The screen will show you the texting screen waiting for your approval of what it thinks you said. If all is good, press Send.
EMAIL [say a contact name, then the message], i.e. “Email Mark Smith, Hey Mark can your phone do this Question Mark” – there is more you can do with this Android Voice Command but we’ll have to leave that for the full article on Emails using Voice Actions.
PLAY [say the name of a group or a particular piece/song], i.e. “Play Revelation Song” – If you have the music and a music App on your phone that can deal with Voice Commands, it will start playing the music for you. This one can be tricky!
NOTE TO SELF [say what you want to remind yourself of], i.e. “Note to self, Remember to get dog food on the way home today” – The result of this one is you get a written email sent to you (“yourself”) with the text you dictated. It is not sending you an audio file, but the written text in an email.
GO TO [say a website name], i.e. “Go to Use My Droid dot com” – you should end up here! At www.UseMyDroid.com
DEFINE [say a word], i.e. “Define internet” – you may get a list of guesses as to the word you say if it is strange enough, but that is OK because you are trying to get the definition right? Choose the proper word choice from the list and it then takes you to the web with a definition for that word. Cool!