Database Develop

[REVIEW] Choice Dialer - BT Dial/Command Entry

I recently purchased Choice Dialer, and thought I'd start a thread with somewhat af a review, and hopefully learn from others too about how to make it work well for us.
Ever since moving to Android, I have sorely missed Microsoft Voice Command. Choice Dialer is a start toward that direction. Of course, some will think of Vlingo, which in fact may be better now than when I last used it. Seems there is not one voice app that does everything.
Among features that it has are;
Of course, Dial by name, or number
Play/pause music; Next/Previous song; Play by artist; Play from album; Play songs by title
Send email
Send text
Set Facebook status
Create contact
Open App
Schedule an event on calendar
Enable/Disable WiFi, Blue Tooth, GPS and some more
Tell you the time
Add to calendar
I have only had the app for a few days, and this review will not be comprehensive.
Does it understand?
I am struggleing a bit having it understand me. I frequently have it say "Try again". Sometimes it does something completely different from what I asked.
I am finding that it has a learning curve for speaking so it understands, as it is getting a little better. Interestingly, it understands better if I speak faster. When talking to a voice recognition, I think people have a tendency to speak slow and enunciate clearly. Interestingly, i find that makes it worse...at least, speaking slow does, for me.
I also think the app needs to mature some. For example I had this conversation with it yesterday:
Me: Enable Blue Tooth
CD: Did you say Disable Blue Tooth?
Me: No
CD; Disabling Blue Tooth.
Uh...it should have understood NO.
Another thing, as all voice dialers need, it needs a fairly quite environment. Background noise, radios, etc. will really throw it off.
Playing Music
First off, the only music player it plays through at the moment is the native android music app. I use MixZing, so prefer that.
It is nice that it will play by Artist, Album, or Song. But a glaring omission is it will not play by Genre. I asked them about playing genres, and got this response:
As to your suggestion for genres, for now perhaps you can approximate the effect through playlists? I steer clear of genres, as Android does not support the concept in its data model (I cannot ask the phone to tell me which songs are "pop").
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dialng
I find it to do fairly well at dialing when the person is in the contacts. Occasionally need to retry. I really like that it has voice confirmation.
Send Email
When I go to dictate an email, it uses Google Voice to hear the message. And often I get "Server problem Speak again" message in the Google App. I suppose it is a problem for the Google App, not Choice Dialer. But in the end, not too great. I attempted an email 7 times, and it worked twice. When it works, there is no way that I know of to have it use punctuation.
Open App
I can say Open <program name> and it works fairly well.
An interesting challenge for it is this one: "Open GPS Test". It never gets that. I presume because GPS is not a word.
Enable/Disable Functions
It works pretty good to enable Blue Tooth, and WiFi. Again, I sometimes need to repeat.
But, interestingly, enabling GPS is not what you expect. It launches the settings for you to click it, rather than just turning it on. I contacted them about it, and this is their response:
That is because that is all it CAN do.. nothing more direct is permitted a non-Google app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That one perplexes me. If you can directly enable Wifi, and Blue Tooth, I wonder why you couldn't do GPS. Certainly, there are apps that you can toggle it with.
Support
I find them VERY responsive. This is a good sign, and hopefully the app will mature and improve.
Wish List
If only this, or some app somewhere, could be as solid and capable as I found Microsoft Voice Command to be.
Would like to be able to : Play music by genre; Of course, have improved understanding and accuracy; tell me what is on my schedule today, and tomorrow. I'm sure there are others, but I'm running out of time for now on this post.
Conclusion
I may continue to use this for basic stuff, including dialing, and turning on BT when in car, opening apps etc. But for now, its too much effort repeating and so forth for the other features to be of much value to me.
So, are you using Choice Dialer? Better luck with it? Suggestions for use?

ewingr said:
I recently purchased Choice Dialer, and thought I'd start a thread with somewhat af a review, and hopefully learn from others too about how to make it work well for us.
...
Conclusion
I may continue to use this for basic stuff, including dialing, and turning on BT when in car, opening apps etc. But for now, its too much effort repeating and so forth for the other features to be of much value to me.
So, are you using Choice Dialer? Better luck with it? Suggestions for use?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried the free version and really found it to be barely on par with the VoiceDailer.apk. Additionally, though there were lots of settings, it seemed overly complicated to me (I am a huge Voicedial fan from MS6.5).
I really only want the dial bit with confirmation (I never got that to work with the free version), and maybe reading/sending texts via voice.
I am not ready to step up and buy the app, and a 1 day trial is sort of silly. Give me 3-4 days. I did not realized there was a 1 day trial when I got the free version from the market, so I did not have an opportunity to test the paid version.
It is good to hear that their support is responsive. Let me know how you progress with this. I will let you know if I purchase the product.

I'll post back in a while.
I am still finding it a bit frustrating. I love the confirmation. But, I find it has a LOT of trouble understanding me. I think it is due to background noise.
Last night I tried it a bit driving home. I drive a Lexus, so road noise is not that bad, but with my Motorola T505 speaker phone unit, I had to scream at it for it to hear me.

Well, I'm about to give up on Choice Dialer. It just has way too high a percentage of not understanding.
I'm very disappointed. This is the only app I've found that has verification by voice.
I find Vlingo and Google Voice to have its share of misunderstanding, but not near as bad as Choice Dialer, but then they require hands on methods for verifications.

The major omission I found when switching from Windows Mobile to Android Eclair was voice dialling thru bluetooth. When I updated to Froyo I immediately tested the Voice Dialler with my Jawbone II - disappointed is an understatement. Recognition of contact names was abysmal, half the time it would dial the wrong contact without any confirmation. Other times I'd have to select an option on the screen - hardly hands free!
I tried Vlingo, but soon found it would only listen and speak thru the phone, not the bluetooth. Apparently a headset with A2DP profile is required.
So I tried Choice Dialer free, and found it better than the stock voice dialer because it offers voice confirmations thru bluetooth. That alone makes it worth using.
Recognition is good using the Jawbone, I haven't tried a built-in bluetooth or separate speaker phone yet. I'll report back when I've done so.
Anyway, I was impressed enough to purchase the Choice Dialer Plus. Can't say I've used the text and email capabilites for real yet, because although you can dictate a message thru bluetooth, you can't send it without pressing a button on the screen. Apparently the developer is working on making texting fully hands-free. He seems pretty active, judging by the change log on the site.
So I would recommend that those who are disappointed with stock Voice Dialler give Choice Dialer a try and see how the voice recognition works for you. Or if you have an A2DP headset, try Vlingo.

[Q] Touchless Control Uses

I've been thinking about giving a Moto X a try recently and I had a few questions for those of you who own one.
Other than while driving, what are some of the unexpected uses you have found for touchless control? In theory it sounds great, but a couple of the things I can think which would be really handy (throwing it into cupholder in car and turning on bluetooth with voice, pausing Netflix stream that is beng chromecasted) can't be done because of limitations of Google Now/Search, rather than Touchless Control itself.
Also, most people seem to love active notifications. However, if the clock flashes every so often without notifications, it seems like one would occasionally not notice a real notification unless you actually glance at it, rather than something you see out of the corner of your eye and know you need to check on. Also can they be prioritized? Like the messaging icon will appear rather than gmail if you have both, because it is higher priority?
Thanks for any information.

evolvd said:
I've been thinking about giving a Moto X a try recently and I had a few questions for those of you who own one.
Other than while driving, what are some of the unexpected uses you have found for touchless control? In theory it sounds great, but a couple of the things I can think which would be really handy (throwing it into cupholder in car and turning on bluetooth with voice, pausing Netflix stream that is beng chromecasted) can't be done because of limitations of Google Now/Search, rather than Touchless Control itself.
Also, most people seem to love active notifications. However, if the clock flashes every so often without notifications, it seems like one would occasionally not notice a real notification unless you actually glance at it, rather than something you see out of the corner of your eye and know you need to check on. Also can they be prioritized? Like the messaging icon will appear rather than gmail if you have both, because it is higher priority?
Thanks for any information.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The clock flashing threw me off when I first got it yesterday afternoon - I didn't know why it was flashing, and was afraid something was messed up. After a few moments though it does slow down/stop...or at least on mine it did.
And notifications (when you have multiple) I believe are set in order of receiving them. For instance, my G+ photo upload was ready for backup, and I got a Hangout SMS. The SMS took priority, while the G+ photo upload was smaller at the bottom. So I don't think it's based on "priority" but rather "which one is more recent".
Hope that helps.

[Q] Other notifications?

While I am waiting for my Pioneer to arrive, one thing occurred to me. What happens to notifications from other apps? For instance, SmartThings notifies me if I left my garage door open after I leave the house; will those simply be silenced if my phone is connected to Android Auto beforehand?

Solutions Etcetera said:
While I am waiting for my Pioneer to arrive, one thing occurred to me. What happens to notifications from other apps? For instance, SmartThings notifies me if I left my garage door open after I leave the house; will those simply be silenced if my phone is connected to Android Auto beforehand?
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Click to collapse
Good question. I don't think it silences them, but it doesn't show them on the head unit. You could have ST send you an SMS instead (and that would show up.)
I suspect (hope) that google will eventually allow other app notifications to pop up on the head unit's screen - even if you can't interact with them (other than to just clear them.)

Thanks. It kinda sucks that AA cripples your notifications. I don't need to interact with them, but not getting them at all seems overkill.
I share your hope that they revisit some of their decisions.

Solutions Etcetera said:
Thanks. It kinda sucks that AA cripples your notifications. I don't need to interact with them, but not getting them at all seems overkill.
I share your hope that they revisit some of their decisions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I doubt Google will backtrack on these decisions.
There is a new AA API for Audio and a new AA API for notifications.
Apps must implement these for Google to allow them to work with AA. Furthermore, the apps must be submitted to Google for approval to try and ensure they are not driver distracting.
These are very intentional business decisions Google has made.
Google does NOT want to be sued for driver distraction, nor get bad press from cases where people try and blame AA ("The tree jumped out in front of me") and does NOT want regulators banning Android Auto.
Furthermore, this reduces the competition Google faces from other audio and messaging apps. Only "select" apps will be allowed.

mikereidis said:
I doubt Google will backtrack on these decisions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Possibly, but Google's nature is to throw it against the wall and see what sticks.
If even non-interactive aspects of your device are crippled, folks may feel the need to disconnect while driving (which defeats the whole point of it).
Or, avoid the platform entirely. I know that after seeing a demo of AA I thought "my Moto X does all of this and more, without having to look at or touch it".
I'm betting that this will evolve in the same way as other projects.

Is Android Auto a Big Mess? Can't Send Texts. Unstable. Bugs. Poor Design.

Just picked up a 2019 Mazda with Android Auto. LG V30 running Android 8.0. I have all sorts of weird things happens indicating this app is NOT stable. I'm wondering who I go to, to try to work out the problems, Google or Mazda? (I doubt Mazda can do anything.)
I've been a Software Developer for over 20 years and my opinion thus far is Android Auto is both unstable and poorly thought out.
Geez, I could build a list a mile long but here's some major things off the top of my head...
- When replying to a text message, I get as far as AA reading my reply and asking me if I want to send, which I confirm, and then it says "Ha. Something went wrong." If I then ask "What went wrong?" AA Says there was a server error but I've fixed it now. No, you haven't, because it keeps doing it.
- The command "OK Google... Send text message to {insert contact name}" responds with "I don't know how to do that." Are you kidding me? I can do that on my phone when not using AA.
- The command "read last text message" AA responds it can't do that either.
- The command "read last notification" can't do it.
There are pretty basic necessities when driving. I'm sure Google has some explanation like "apps aren't allowed to access {some data} for security purposes." But in reality, at the end of the day, the software engineer's goals should be centered around making user functionality as useful as possible and easy to use. Looks like thus far, they've really missed the mark.
The funny (but sad) thing is, the Mazda salesman said the Apple Car Play worked better, but didn't warn me about the issues I was going to have with Android Auto. I can see why he said Apple was better. But Google is such a small company with so little resources, I can therefore understand why Android Auto is subpar (NOT.)

I use AA only for Waze navigation because the weird stuff you wrote about.
Google went for a super duper restrictive use of Auto functionalities for "drive security" sake, at the point they rendered the product almost unusable. It's ironic the AA software is even more restrictive than automotive manufacturers ones.
In my case, the only really usable software in AA are Waze (even with its frequent errors) and Google Maps.

nangu said:
I use AA only for Waze navigation because the weird stuff you wrote about.
Google went for a super duper restrictive use of Auto functionalities for "drive security" sake, at the point they rendered the product almost unusable. It's ironic the AA software is even more restrictive than automotive manufacturers ones.
In my case, the only really usable software in AA are Waze (even with its frequent errors) and Google Maps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can see myself going the same route if things don't get better. One thing though I was really happy with was on my Acura, I'd usually have to turn down the volume to issue voice commands because I believe without Android Auto, you are talking to the phone mic, not the car mic for "OK Google" commands. With AA, it appears to use the car mic and picks up and understands your voice commands a lot better. Of course if most of the useful voice commands you want to use AA doesn't support anyway, I guess it's sort of a moot point.
I just deleted all the AA app data and cache and reinstalled thinking maybe I accidentally skipped over a permissions grant when I installed, but then, the app wouldn't be reading my text messages if I did that but I'll try anything to make it work.
I can't think of any BIG advantage to using Google Play Music via AA as opposed to the car's Bluetooth. It's also a little annoying to have to plug the phone in. Gee, here we are in 2019 and we're really *this* far from a well engineered solution from Google? I guess considering the app doesn't generate revenue for them, this may be the real issue. But I would guess car manufacturers have to pay some sort of licensing fee to include it in their cars. So AA technically would be more of a revenue generator than say the free Google Assistant - which ironically is more useful and works better than AA. Go figure. Although one could argue GA is a must have O/S feature to compete with iOS and therefore indirectly generates more revenue via phone sales.

@nangu
Is Waze still *that* much better than Google Maps? I know it was better in the past but hasn't Google added more features like accident reporting, etc. I believe Google actually owns Waze so maybe they are gradually merging the feature sets? So does the car actually display the Waze map? How to you indicate you want the Nav button to bring up the Waze map instead of Google Maps?

jazee said:
@nangu
Is Waze still *that* much better than Google Maps? I know it was better in the past but hasn't Google added more features like accident reporting, etc. I believe Google actually owns Waze so maybe they are gradually merging the feature sets? So does the car actually display the Waze map? How to you indicate you want the Nav button to bring up the Waze map instead of Google Maps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi @jazee
Actually, GMaps render to the car screen a lot better, it's smoother and graphically nicer. I have to test the "waze added" features like dynamic navigation based on traffic, speed camera alerts, warnings alerts, etc.
Last GMaps version available on my region doesn't display speed camera warnings as far as I tested, so it's a waze keeper for me until Google decides to incorporate this functionality on Maps at least.
The car does display the Waze map, alert icons, speed cams, etc, both visually and audible.
To display Waze or Maps on car screen, you press Android Auto navigation button. It depends on your default navigation app which is shown on the screen at first, but if you are displaying Maps in example, and you press the AA navigation button again, you can choose which navigation app you want to use and it is saved as default.

jazee said:
Just picked up a 2019 Mazda with Android Auto. LG V30 running Android 8.0. I have all sorts of weird things happens indicating this app is NOT stable. I'm wondering who I go to, to try to work out the problems, Google or Mazda? (I doubt Mazda can do anything.)
I've been a Software Developer for over 20 years and my opinion thus far is Android Auto is both unstable and poorly thought out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi @jazee,
I'm a user of AA for the last 3 years. Here my recomendations:
- For better AA experience, exit from all Gloogle BETA services.
- Don't try to use conversational language with the Google Assistant (yes! AA use GA). Use only accepted "commands".
- Remember that without Internet connection only a very limited commands are available. So, without network use only the screen.
Besides that AA is far away of the creapping media interfaces from car manufacturers!

manos78 said:
Hi @jazee,
I'm a user of AA for the last 3 years. Here my recomendations:
- For better AA experience, exit from all Gloogle BETA services.
- Don't try to use conversational language with the Google Assistant (yes! AA use GA). Use only accepted "commands".
- Remember that without Internet connection only a very limited commands are available. So, without network use only the screen.
Besides that AA is far away of the creapping media interfaces from car manufacturers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
- Where is the list of "commands" ?? (Can't use them if I don't know all of them.)
- I pretty much always have an Internet connection being on Verizon so doubt it has to do with my connection.

Well after several hours of troubleshooting and searching various forums, I found a solution to why I can't send text messages.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/an...l/google-aa-engineers-forcing-please-t3902336

[CLOSED](delete)

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Kodijack said:
I took a good search and haven't found a single app that is just like a screensaver, desktop or a clock. 99% of apps are music and navigation.
Hard to believe no one thought of a generic "desktop"-app with widgets or whatever. Especially with coolwalk it could be really nice.
But maybe you guys know something like this and my searching just sucked?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm... I can't understand what you wrote and what you are looking for, although I've been using android for 12 years. Even if it involves AA.
Please could you expand your description?

Now I understand your message as a regret that there is no revolution in the field of development of Head Units.
I don't think that will happen soon. Development will evolve.
The priority when driving is the safety of all users of the road and its surroundings.
I think that the plan for the development of the head unit is written out in stages, which require the achievement of so much development of protection measures while driving that the driver's inattention and distraction cannot be the cause of anyone's danger.
Currently, head units are deliberately poor in functions so that they can be simple to use and not distract the driver from his primary task: safe driving.
I think fiddling with the phone and projecting an image onto the head unit screen or vice versa, and focusing attention on widgets and other bits and pieces that phones have, can only be safe if passengers do it.

Google only allows certain apps on Android Auto.
Normally navigation, communication and music apps.
It's just a question if Google allows a clock app. I'm pretty sure that there were already people with this idea.