Search by Voice Comes to Google Maps 4.1 for Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 phones

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 | 4:30 PM

We understand that typing on phones isn’t as easy or fast as talking into them. As a result, we’re big fans of letting you search in Google Maps for mobile in the most natural way possible -- with your voice! Not wanting the BlackBerry and Android folks to have all the fun, today we’re happy to announce Search by voice in Google Maps 4.1 on Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 phones.

Search by voice lets you easily search for anything by simply speaking your search terms instead of typing them. Just open Google Maps, press your phone’s “call” button, and clearly speak your search term like “Park Plaza.” Search by voice works with all the kinds of searches Google Maps for mobile already supports, including places, addresses (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway), specific businesses (The French Laundry), or types of businesses (sushi restaurants new york).



You may also notice a few other additions, including a redesigned settings page with Search by voice language choices. Choose your preferred language from the supported options, including multiple English accents and Mandarin Chinese. Also, if you find a problem with any information in Google Maps, you can use the “Report a problem” option to let us know.



To get started, install the latest version of Google Maps for mobile 4.1 for Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 by going to m.google.com/maps in your phone’s standard web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile). This update is available in all the countries and languages where Google Maps for mobile is currently available.

Visit our Help Center to learn more or tell us your feedback and questions in our Help Forum. Give us suggestions and vote on other people’s on the Mobile Product Ideas page.

Posted by Yuliang Wang and Yifei Zhang, Software Engineers, Google Mobile Team

26 comments:

lensovet said...

This is great news, but what about the sole remaining platform which still doesn't have this – the iPhone OS? Will this finally be implemented in OS 4?

Lincoln said...

Thanks for the S 60 update

Alex Chitu said...

@lensovet:

Install Google Mobile App and you'll be able to find locations and local business using voice search.

lensovet said...

@Alex: that kinda sorta works, but I really wish for a fully-integrated maps solution. Along with turn-by-turn navigation.

Test said...

wow..seriously gr8 thing nw we can search by voice,bt it will require a lot of artificial intelligence
i woul like to update my S60 mobile phone by this application

Lenois said...

This is indeed great news. I'm just wondering if turn by turn navigation will ever be implemented on any platform other than Android?

Unknown said...

atlast.......thank you google for this update. can u please provide orkut app like u did for s60 and android ?

Naim Khan said...

will be sued for by the company that owns this technology.

Classicalphotog said...

I have been waiting for this! It's a great safety feature! You people have turned my E71 from a dufus phone into a rock star with your aps!!!! 1000 times better than an i-somethingorother. You have my heartfelt gratitude!!
Dave G

atomi said...

hey google i live in FINLAND NOT sweden so could we have mannerheimintie NOT Mannerheimvägen or other swedish shit or if you haw to have address names in swedis then can you made it look my phone os language.
in Finland 90% of people speak Finnish and only 4% speak swedis so now this app is almost useless.

Unknown said...

Samsung Keyboard (Samsung Omnia i900) still not working with this version...

حمزة عبد المطلب said...

I cannot understand this.
Google takes care about adding arabic support in all it's products,
and they will in the future Chromium OS. But why the Android does
not support arabic? Is that a matter of technical issues or what?
With the iPhone you can switch on arabic and your all device is in
arabic, you can also have your contact list in both English and
Arabic.

What's the matter with arabic in Android?

plz we want Arabic on Android.

Free Ringtone said...

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qman said...

Doesn't seem to work for touch enabled phones like the Nokia 5800XM. The voice search seems to timeout too quickly for it to be useful.

grebulon said...

Doesn't help me at all, because there are no maps for Israel yet.

Freeflow said...

Hi i have BB 8320 AND GMAIL 2.0.6 is not working on it. Older version has gt deleted and dnt knw what to do. can someone pls help? My mail id is manish.shivram@gmail.com

Unknown said...

Awesome. Great job, guys. Thanks for the frequent updates for my E71.

Unknown said...

There are still two features that my girlfriend's Blackberry has that my E71 does not. Those are ETA for driving directions (the time remaining appears in a box in the top right corner) and, more importantly, rerouting directions from my location. Currently, to reroute on the E71, I need to turn the layer off and on. On the Blackberry, I can simply scroll to the bottom of the directions list and hit the "reroute" button. Are these features on the roadmap? Is there a reason they haven't been included yet?

Muserella said...

Voice search isn't working on HTC Touch Pro 2. Microphone appears, but phone doesn't recognize the request (Dairy Queen...is that hard?) or requests repetition over and over without solving. Very sad.

Danny Zhan said...

太好了,准备在我的E66上试试看!

Unknown said...

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Kulturministeren said...

I try to download the symbian version.. It says on the link its the 4.1 ver.
But when try to install it says 4.01

Is it the wrong file??

Test said...

good news...

Unknown said...

Hello All,

I have nokia-5233 mobile (BSNL with WAP). I have installed the google maps and its not working says Loading map... later says connection error. Please advise how o solve this issue. Thanks.

Unknown said...

Hello All,

I have nokia-5233 mobile (BSNL with WAP). I have installed the google maps and its not working says Loading map... later says connection error. Please advise how o solve this issue. Thanks.

Unknown said...

Now all we need is some of this goodness on webOS. Work with Palm to get those needed API's!