Dragon Search – Another Great Search App for the iPhone
Wow “ it ‘s a great week to be an iPhone user looking for new and impressive web searching options, and a bad week to be the Google Mobile app. Earlier this week the new Bing app hit the App Store, and it looks quite impressive “ and now we have the Dragon Search app entering the fray as well, and also looking very good indeed.
Dragon Search is from Nuance Communications, the same team who recently launched the excellent Dragon Dictation app.
You can type your search terms into Dragon Search, but “ not surprisingly given its background “ it really stands out when using its voice search capabilities. Its recognition ability seems as strong as the Dictation app in my testing so far. It has picked up just about everything I ‘ve thrown at it so far on voice search, even with music playing in the background, and when trying out some tricky names.
I think my favorite thing about the app though, is the range of results sources it presents and the slick interface it offers for switching quickly between these. All searches yield results from these sources:
- Google (or Yahoo or Bing depending on your choice in settings)
- Wikipedia
- YouTube
- iTunes
Switching between each of these sources is incredibly easy to do “ via the app ‘s carousel control at the top of its screen. I ‘m finding this a very nice method for finding all the best results very quickly.
Here are a few more screencaps “ showing results from some of the various sources for the word ‘grinch ‘
I ‘m definitely finding this app to be another very effective search tool on the iPhone, and maybe even my favorite one at the moment.
Dragon Search is available in the App Store now, and it ‘s a free app.
These apps from Nuance look great, but why are they not available here in the UK?
Fine question – but I'm afraid I don't know the answer.
I wonder if it's to do with accents & country rights. At present, I've played with a lot of voice apps, and I have to say, this one (Dictation) seems to recognise my voiceaccent better than any other app. Albeit, what I find weird is that the Dictation software seems to understand my voice better than the search app. Odd!
I've tested it a few times, and the Dictation app is virtually spot on, but the search I have to repeat myself, and to think less is said with the search app…
That is a little surprising – both apps seem to recognize equally well for me so far.
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