Tellme Voice-Based Search Coming to iPhone

It has been confirmed that Microsoft's Tellme voice-activated search service is heading to the iPhone. It will be a couple of months before the application arrives on the App Store, according to Senior Director of the development team, Dariusz Paczuski.

But the potential is truly valuable. For example, with Tellme on your iPhone, you will be able to find the nearest businesses based on your GPS location, but also get maps, directions, and traffic, all powered by Live Search. However, more common services like Weather forecasts are also available with Tellme. You simply say "Weather" and the forecast for your current location is displayed on your iPhone's screen, instantly. Additionally, users can save their favorite cities by saying "Add to My Favorites" during a forecast, and shortcut right to them later on by saying "Tellme My Favorites." Currently, quite a number of phones are supported, including RIM's BlackBerry.

CNet's Ina Fried is reporting that, although Microsoft has managed to develop an alpha version of Tellme for iPhone “in a matter of weeks,” Dariusz Paczuski said the app wasn't likely to hit Apple's iPhone any sooner than two months. However, Paczuski confidently stated that a public version would definitely be released within the current fiscal year (by June 2009).

"I'm not sure we can squeeze it out this year, given everything we've got going on," Paczuski told CNet's editor at last night's Churchill Club event. He then added that developers were struggling with a few challenges posed by Apple's smartphone. One of those is the lack of a keyboard, which means everything has to be translated for the iPhone's touch-screen.

“'You want a button,' Paczuski said. Even on Sprint's touch-screen Instinct, Tellme is able to use the call button to determine when a user is speaking,” the report reads. Paczuski also noted that there would probably be a “big virtual button in the middle of the screen,” upon the application's initial release.