Google mobile finally listens to you, voice activated search is here to stay

The Google Mobile iPhone app was already the greatest search utility for iPhone and iPod touch. The type-ahead “suggest” feature was a killer add-on that made tapping in search terms a breeze. Then Google optimized the search results formatting specifically for mobile Safari, included inline links, maps, and local information. It seems like Google is always listening to what customers want out of mobile search, and now here’s definitive proof that Google hears us, literally. The Google iPhone app gets another upgrade today that enables voice-powered search. You talk, Google listens, then returns the iPhone search results as usual.

We’re convinced that one day, voice will be the primary interface between humans and the web. In fact, that should have happened already, no? It seems like voice recognition has been around long enough. There’s always talk about how voice technology improves every year, yet we really haven’t seen it used for web navigation, at least until now. Leave it to Google to deliver a surprisingly accurate, yet not perfect, voice interface to the device where voice matters most, the iPhone.

Google Mobile also adds location awareness to its arsenal. This means Google senses your location then delivers relevant search results for your proximity. For instance, hold up your iPhone and say “pizza”. The search results will be filed with pizzerias near your physical location. And any phone numbers in the results will be automatically link the number so you can call it with a simple tap. It’s damn near genius.

Oddly, the voice search will let you search your Google contacts but not your local contacts. It would be awesome if this app acted more like Google Desktop allowing you to search both web and information on your iPhone or iPod touch. Knowing Google, that’s probably coming to Google Mobile sometime in the future. In the meantime, you can export your iPhone contacts into Google so you can look them up with voice commands.

We see some people already complaining that the voice search sometimes misses. It’s true, it does miss the mark from time to time, but this is voice recognition, it’s not perfect so don’t expect it to be. It is, however, a Google product so does have amazing usefulness and will get even better as they slowing improve it.

Google Mobile’s voice technology was honed slowly over the past couple of years using GOOG-411 as a test bed. The GOOG-411 product from Google is an information service that is targeted to all phones, mobile and tethered. The voice recognition interface used by GOOG-411 was tuned for accuracy as more people used it. Now Google brings this to its mobile search iPhone app, for free, of course. If you are driving and need to look up information, you’re better off using GOOG-411 so keep that number on your home screen next to Google Mobile (1-800-GOOG-411).

Google Mobile for iPhone gets Google one step further in their quest to make everything in the universe easy to find. It’s fantastic. It’s free. Go get the upgrade now.

• Google Mobile with voice search - Free [app store]

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