Voice search and Google Voice commands had been around in Android for more than a year, but it was the Jelly Bean debut that made it so popular.
With the pre-JB offering you could Control your Android with voice commands like calling contacts, finding directions on map, sending text messages, etc, all controlled by voice. Google had their API available to developers to fiddle with Voice commands, but it wasn’t very versatile until recently.
The Google Now Voice search does a lot you would normally expect from a Voice based assistant. It can set alarms, answer any question using the Knowledge graph, set notes to self and what not. However, there is a little customizations it has to offer. You cannot program your own Voice command with it.
Voice Shortcuts Launcher lets you access virtually anything on your Android with your own Custom Voice Command, whatever you choose it to be.
So you can create your custom voice commands using Google Voice search, and then associate a particular action/task with that command. So it makes doing routine jobs like launching applications a word away.
So what all can you do? Simply put, you can associate a voice command to:
- launch a system or third-party app,
- navigate to a URL of choice,
- view and interact with a specific contact via call, text & mail,
- open a locally stored file supporting any file format,
- Toggle phone features (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Airplane mode and sound profiles).
To help you get started, here are few sample Voice commands you can use with the app:
- “Open Facebook”
- “Toggle Wi-Fi”
- “Play Linkin Park” (associate with any Video/Audio file or playlist)
- “Open addictivetips dot com (speak to directly open a domain or a specific URL)
- “Switch to silent”
- “Project slideshow” (associate a document file using the app’s built-in file browser)
- “Take photo” or “Shoot video”
- “Mail to Jack”
- “Data backup Now” (Associate a Tasker task, or Titanium backup)
You can launch Voice Shortcuts Launcher in various ways:
- Launch from icon
- Launch from notification panel shortcut (customizable),
- Widget
The app works almost always while responding to your preconfigured commands. However, app has no individual smartness to be able to do more. We would definitely want a hybrid of Google Now and Voice Shortcuts launcher.
The app is free and can be downloaded using the link below.
Voice Shortcuts Launcher [Google Play]
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