Among the plethora of new features that Samsung has added to its Galaxy line in their most recent iteration is the new “Galaxy S Voice Drive.” This is a special mode that your Galaxy S IV can enter when you get into your car. In addition to activating passive voice commands to do things like make calls and send text messages, this software will connect you to your car via Bluetooth. The Galaxy S III had a feature similar to this that would read text messages aloud when activated, but this new technology seems to be much more well thought out.
This is all an effort for the Galaxy S IV to act as your personal assistant. When a message comes in the user will be notified and then have the option to have the message read aloud. The driver can then have their Galaxy S IV either reply to the message or ignore it, all using voice commands. This is vaguely reminiscent of Siri’s digital assistant for cars, but because voice commands on Android have always been light years ahead of anything Apple has been able to scrape together, it is safe to assume that S Voice Drive Commands will actually be something people can use.
It will be interesting to learn more about these features as they are tested out in the wild for the first time. I can certainly see this feature being ideal for anyone who uses NFC tags in their car. I have two NFC tags in my car, one is stuck to my car mount and the other is on my door. One tag activates Bluetooth, turns off my Wi-Fi connection, opens Pandora, connects to my car stereo, turns my ringers up and my vibrate off, and brightens my screen. The other reverses all these settings for when I get out of my car.
Can you see yourself using these new voice commands while you run errands or commute to work?