Siri — you’d better watch your back — because Google Search for iOS now wants to do all the talking.
Although it doesn’t yet have a sexy name like Siri does, Google Search hopes you’ll overlook that — after all, it is Google. Using search technology built into Android Jelly Bean, the new Google Search provides contextual, spoken results for voice queries and Web searches in English and 41 other languages. In tests, Google Search often delivers answers faster than Siri, and it even shows your queries as transcriptions as you speak them.
The new voice search feature is part of Google Search version 2.5, now available on iTunes. Version 2.5 also adds support for Apple’s iPhone 5. In order to use the voice search feature, you need to have iOS 4.2 or later.
In an interview with CNET earlier this year, Google said it plans to build some of the same search integration into its other products including Google Calendar and Drive, but hasn’t yet hinted at when it will do so.
To help you get the best results, Google has put together a list of the types of search questions that work well here, and a promotional video below.
