Do I have to be in the UK?
8 comments
Comments
The voice recognition algorithm is built to work for native speakers in their native countries (that is the majority of people, after all). The recognition is trained with actual data from the countries it is designed to work in.
This means that if a German speaker were to use it in the UK it would not work well for her and her usage of the feature would feed back into the recognition engine in such a way that it might also not work as well for a native English speaker.
For you, living outside the UK but speaking English, the recognition engine would not be able to find any addresses for you. For example, I am American and I live in Germany. If I ask it for "Invalidenstrasse" with my thick American accent, it will not work.
Therefore, you must have a SIM card from the supported country AND have your phone set to the supported language.
We are hoping to have voice search for other countries, but I can't say anything about timelines and as usual... no promises!
But, do you mean that you're basing this voice recognition API on English carries' API? or are you just compiling your own recognition files?
When you have the phone set to English and a UK sim card in the phone (and you are using maps online) you will see the voice search feature. You will not need a new version.
When we release a new language and it is going to work for you, the feature will appear. You will not have to get a new version of Maps.
We did that with magic.