Recently, Google debuted a new voice for things like Google Now and such. It’s a much nicer voice, as many would agree. It sounds more like the voice is a real person and not just Google talking back to you. That voice has gone into the car with Android Auto now. We’ve had the chance to use it this week with Android Auto and used it for navigation as well as using dictation to send messages, and the voice is really good. Many people may not even know the voice changed, although some users are hearing two different voices in their car now. As some are seeing rather, hearing the old voice in some parts of Android Auto, and the new voice in others. That’s likely just a bug that will be fixed pretty soon.
The new voice sounds great, as we’ve mentioned, and what else users have been seeing with the new voice is that voice recognition seems to have improved as well. Voice recognition was always pretty decent. At least in my experience, I never had it mess up really, with what I’m saying. Although others have had issues. Voice recognition is an important part of Android Auto, as it keeps your eyes on the road as they should be, but still allows you to get directions to somewhere, as well as sending messages and switching from one song to another. And seeing that get improved is a nice touch to Android Auto. It’ll likely continue to get better over the next few months and even the next year or so.
Google’s new voice is also heading to more cars, as Kia announced a slew of new cars coming in the next year and a half that will feature Android Auto, as well as some that are going to be getting an over-the-air update for Android Auto. We’ve said this many times before, Android Auto is very much a niche beta product from Google. but it is getting better and better all the time. Definitely great to see, in a world where many of us don’t buy cars every year or even every other year, seeing these improvements is going to be a big deal.