Video compares Google Pixel 3, Apple iPhone 11 ‘voice to text’ feature

We often hear some big tech brands talk about machine learning and AI algorithms that are implemented to make our everyday lives easier. Some of this tech is used in speech recognition as well on both Google’s Pixel smartphone and Apple’s iPhone. So, someone decided to test them side by side, giving us an idea of how the two devices, which represent the best of hardware and software the rival companies have to offer, handle speech to text functionality.

In the test video made by a Twitter user @jamescham one could see the iPhone 11 placed besides the Google Pixel 3. While the former uses iOS-built in transcription, Pixel uses the hardware-based machine learning algorithm. After narrating a paragraph it is seen that Pixel 3 is way fluid in capturing the words and showing them as text as and when Cham speaks, the iPhone 11 is seen struggling a bit and throwing out a phrase at once after choking at certain points. It was also 6 seconds behind in showing the text on the screen, as compared to Pixel 3.

However, the idea behind this exercise was not to show the accuracy of both the handsets, but also the speed at which we talk and if these palm-sized machines are able to keep up.

However, this is just a casual test and not something that is precise or in a controlled environment with background processing in check. But this does tell us a lot about how Google is pacing ahead with its machine learning tech.

Talking about voice recognition, Google has started testing voice matching for payments. As per a report, the company is testing a new feature on Google Assistant that would allow users to make payments by using simple voice commands. Google confirmed to Android Police in a statement that the feature is a part of an early but limited pilot program that would allow users to make purchases via their Google Assistant powered devices in a handful of categories.