Is Google's voice search victim of another App Store 'delay?'
Some people seem to have held their breaths all weekend waiting for Google's new voice search feature to show up on Apple's iPhone App Store. But in this case, that feature has yet to make its anticipated premiere.
As of 2:30 pm Eastern time today, a highly touted voice search feature from Google -- anticipated by many to have been posted last Friday -- still hadn't appeared on Apple's App Store. Over the weekend and through early Monday, pundits mulled the possible implications.
The new feature, which allows for hands-free searches, was announced last Thursday on Google's Web site. Rumors then starting making the rounds that the feature would appear on Friday through an update to Google's existing mobile search application on the App Store.
When App Store watchers didn't see Google's update online by Saturday or Sunday, some conjectured that even the mighty Google is now falling victim to the political games Apple is accused of engaging in with smaller developers.
Apple has often been charged by developers with playing favorites around which apps get admitted to the online store -- as well as with sometimes taking its sweet time around releasing apps even after they are accepted.
According to another school of thought, however, Google's update didn't make it to the App Store simply because Apple didn't think it was ready to go yet.
Maybe the supposed Friday availability date was just wishful thinking on somebody's part, or even an attempt by Google to force the posting of the update on the App Store.
Although Google's voice technology didn't attract much attention back then, way back in April, the US Patent Office issued Patent #7,027,987 to the company for a "voice interface for a search engine," describing the technology as follows:
As is Google's tendency these days, it announced its voice search applications last Thursday not through a conventional press release, but by means of a blog entry on its Web site. Google's blog was accompanied by a video showing how the feature works.
After you place the phone next to your ear, you can ask just about any question, such as "How big is a giant squid?" or "Pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset," according to Google's video. The voice file is converted to a text file and sent to Google search servers, which then come back with the answers immediately.
The search results are also location-aware. If you utter the words, "movie show times," you'll get show times for the area where you live. The voice search feature supports "Google suggestions," too, viewers of the video are told.
But at the tail end of the video, a Google staffer says, "If you want to give it a try, go to App Store on your iPhone and search for 'Google mobile app.'"
The update containing the voice search feature, however, hadn't been posted on the App Store at this writing -- and it clearly wasn't up there last Thursday.
The source of the "Friday" rumor seems to be an article in The New York Times late last week in which reporter John Markoff wrote that, "Apple is expected to make the feature available as soon as Friday." But Markoff wrote, "as soon as Friday," not, "on Friday." So is there any real delay here, anyway?