]]> http://www.jeffdepascale.com/index.php/mobile/bing-app-launched/feed/ 1 http://www.jeffdepascale.com/index.php/mobile/nuance-removes-contact-upload-requiremen/ http://www.jeffdepascale.com/index.php/mobile/nuance-removes-contact-upload-requiremen/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 02:40:29 +0000 Jeff dePascale http://www.jeffdepascale.com/?p=379 Nuance has reacted quickly to the initial negative response towards the required upload of a user's contact names to their servers, releasing a 1.1 update to their Dragon Dictation app today that makes the upload optional, and allows existing users to remove their existing data from Nuance's servers if they had already opted in. The data upload is intended to improve the recognition of contact names by the speech to text algorithms, however the previous requirement of this upload of personal data was a frequent topic of concern in initial reviews of the app.

See my original review of the app here.

At the begin of 2009, Apple was the only real player in the mobile app market, and today there is no argument that the platform still holds the lead by a huge amount for quality, useful third party applications. But as we push further into 2010 and app stores for Android, Palm WebOS, and even Blackberry and WinMo gain market share, users considering jumping ship will face a similar plight for the first time. How many invested dollars in platform specific apps do I stand to lose by jumping platforms?

The cost of mobile apps and the .99 cent phenomenon
An interesting factor to consider is the actual cost for these apps. Amazingly, the iPhone App Store has somehow managed to make the one dollar purchase a new cultural standard. There are three unspoken rules for price point that near every app purchaser follows, whether conscious or not. If it doesn't offer incredibly deep functionality, it should probably be free. If it does offer something useful, it should be .99 cents and have incredible customer support to boot. If it costs more than that, it'd better either be something for a niche market or the latest 3D game from EA. Anything else will get low ranked into submission, and subsequently the .99 cent price point always seems to show up eventually. The interesting result of this is that the average user may have up to 50 apps loaded in their device, and have only paid in the neighborhood of 20 dollars, if even that. For these users, the cost involved with switching platforms is low enough that the cost barrier doesn't outweigh enough of the device cost to rule out the switch.

Higher cost apps
Low cost apps may ultimately be less of a concern, but what about higher cost apps? Navigation apps are an obvious first contender here, with dollar figures as high as $99 and up. But even if we disregard this app category, $5 apps add up very quickly. A mobile professional using a few more expensive apps can be looking at an app bill up to the $50-$100 range to get their existing applications onto their new device.

Free apps
Even free apps still pose issues. In the past, the worst part of getting a new device was re-entering all of your contacts into your shiny new device (on a monochrome screen, no less). Thankfully those days are generally over, thanks to desktop sync or carriers handling the move for you. But for the first time users may face a new transition nuisance in the form of setting up their apps all over again in their new device, if the app (or an equivalent one) even exists in the new platform's store. There's both learning curve considerations and the time required to re-enter all of your preferences and logins. It can be a full days venture or more depending on the apps in question.

Pulling the trigger
For most, the deciding factor will be cost, and it's likely a percentage. If a user is looking at $150 for a subsidized phone and then immediately face an additional initial outlay of $50 or more in app costs right from the get go, plus a day to get their device setup with those apps, it may be enough to make users think twice about the switch. I'd wager that if the total app cost is less than 30% of the device cost, it's negligible to the user. It's a phenomenon that we haven't truly experienced yet, with the exception of possibly legacy WinMo users who may have purchased software for the platform and jumped ship to the iPhone. But the percentages of users will grow exponentially this year as Apple faces what is likely to be a much larger platform and apps push than they've seen yet from Android and Palm. Inevitably a portion of users will consider the switch. What is unknown is whether those users will have the foresight to realize the app transition cost and, if so, if that will be enough for them to stay with their existing platform instead of jumping ship.

It's an interesting notion to think that perhaps Apple intended this all along, anticipating the competition that was guaranteed to emerge. Unlike on desktop OS's, mobile platforms don't follow the serial number registration paradigm. As such, it is near impossible for third party developers to even allow a free or low cost transition between platforms, as many desktop software providers do today. Time will tell whether platform agnosticism will begin to appear in third party app purchases,  but for the time being, as users continue to download and purchase more apps, they are effectively creating more vested interest in sticking to their existing platform, making the inevitable question of jumping platforms all that much harder to stomach.

So what do you think? What would be your threshold for switching platforms being simply too much to contend with? Sound off in the comments.

Bucking that trend of repititive or marginally useful apps comes an elegantly simple yet profoundly useful app from Nuance. Best known as the company behind the well-known Dragon Naturally Speaking speech recognition software, they have released the first version of what could potentially be the next killer productivity app for mobile devices, Dragon Dictation.

Press a button, record, click done, and the app wooshes your voice off to Nuance's servers to be translated into text, and sent back to your device, ready to be edited and copy/pasted wherever you need it, complete with handy shortcuts to email and sms.

Users of my own flagship app, Quick Text (iTunes Link), will recognize some userflow similarity here. It's identical. Not that I take issue with that - quite the opposite. It just reinforces that my architecture was a valid one. Actually, it is immediately apparent to me that, in many cases, the Dragon Dictation app is superior to Quick Text for many short response situations, especially where phrase customization is required. Thankfully, I am happy to report that the 2.0 release of Quick Text is in build now and adds substantial new functionality that should render it useful in parallel to Dragon Dication.

Dragon Dictation NOTE: iTunes link

I've already found Dictation so useful that it has already found a place on my iPhone's homepage, right next to Quick Text, and is already proving it's worth as an often-used app, deserving of that placement. What this app does well, it does very well. It even works over bluetooth, so dictation in-vehicle is now a reality EDIT: I was mistaken, bluetooth does not work with this app. But that's not to say that it isn't without it's flaws. Let's look at a couple of those:

1. Accuracy

At first blush, I was inclined to give Nuance the benefit of the doubt here, and I still am. Given that this is a 1.0 release (actually it's already 1.0.1 as of this writing), bugs are expected, and efficiences and improvements are almost a given. Having said that though, this is Dragon we are talking about, and the technology behind the speech to text in use here is not something new. This is an implementation of what Dragon already does best. But I am still holding out hope that future updates will improve the accuracy, particularly when it comes to recognizing contact names with complex last names. Which brings me to number two.

2. Contacts are uploaded to Nuance

In the day and half since this app has been released, there has been more noise about the legal language you agree to when first running the app than the app itself. About halfway down the legal copy you'll find that Nuance uploads your contact list to their server to, in effect, build a custom add-on dictionary for Nuance to better recognize your contact's names. Let me say first say that I fully recognize the issue people are having with this, but at the same time I personally don't have an issue with it. What I do have an issue with is that, for all the hubbub about this, it doesn't really seem to work too well yet. Most names I tried, no matter how I spoke them, rarely were recognized correctly. I'll reserve final judgement after the app matures.

3. Apple's API restrictions

This one I am intimately aware of through my own frutstrations as a developer with Quick Text. You simply can't reduce the effort involved for the user to get that content out of copy/paste efficiently with OS 3.0. Until Apple opens up the API further to allow some form of multi-tasking and possibly context menu access, the flow now to paste something into anything other than email is: open Dictation->press record->press done->correct errors with keyboard (if needed, but likely)->press done button->press send to clipboard->close app->launch app to paste into->press and hold in field->choose paste. It can, and should, be simpler, and in reality it probably will be, maybe in 4.0. We'll see what Apple's next move is, but in the meantime I can't fault Nuance for this issue given my own acute awareness of this shortcoming of the API.

Given all of this, it is a groundbreaking, useful app, which is a rarity right now on the app store. And to top it all off, Nuance made it free for now, which I give them much credit for. I don't doubt this app will cost something soon, and that's a great strategy in the near term for them. It gets a solid user base in place for testing, gets the word out, and eliminates some of the obligation to provide a superior product. After all, don't we expect near perfection from paid apps? By the time they do add a price to this app, I don't doubt that it will be very stable, very useful, more feature packed, and well worth whatever they choose to charge. So kudos to Nuance for thinking outside the box, and doing it well to boot. So go grab it on the app store for free (iTunes Link) while you still can, and let me know what you think in the comments.