By We thought Vlingo’s exclusivity with Sprint would last a month – as we were told at Pepcom in San Francisco a couple of weeks back – but they’ve seemingly cut it short as they’ve announced availability of Vlingo InCar for all Android users. This was in response to an overwhelming amount of feedback they received from users on other carriers wanting the app on their devices. Read up on our initial report about Vlingo’s latest update here, then head on over to the Android market to download it for yourself. Press details are below.
Vlingo InCar Now Available to All Carriers on Android Market
Now All AndroidTM Users Have Access to the First and Only Completely Hands Free Solution to Send and Respond to Messages, Make Calls, and Get Directions While Driving
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. (October 19, 2010) – Vlingo Corporation, the world’s leading provider of intelligent voice applications that turn your words into action, today announced that “Vlingo InCar,” a recently launched beta feature for AndroidTM users that allows consumers to receive and send text messages without taking their hands off the wheel or their eyes off the road, is now available and actively being promoted on Android Market. Vlingo InCar offers users:
- Voice-driven, hands free initiation – Vlingo enters listening mode upon Bluetooth® connectivity
- Voice driven, hands free initiation using a “wake up word”
- Conversational user guidance instead of a touch screen
- Ability to send and respond to messages, make calls and get directions using only voice commands
- “Data from Vlingo’s third annual ‘Texting While Driving’ in America Report found that while more state laws exist today to ban texting while driving, 35% of mobile phone users continue to text behind the wheel,” said Dave Grannan, president and CEO at Vlingo. “Since launching Vlingo InCar on October 7, the average user is using Vlingo 65% more each day. Now, with additional carrier support, we are arming more AndroidTM users with an alternative solution that will hopefully keep the roads a little safer.”
Following a limited release of InCar two week ago, Vlingo saw an unprecedented grassroots response from its customers requesting InCar on Vlingo’s Facebook page. In just one week over 600 people from unsupported carriers left comments asking for InCar to be made available to them. Here’s a sampling of those anonymous requests:
- Need, need, need. But need it on my VERIZON HTC Incredible. Please?
- I won’t eat or sleep until you release this on Verizon. Well…that’s not true. Would it help if I said “pretty please?” Alright. Fine. PRETTY PLEASE!!!
- This app would certainly be well received by T-Mobile customers using Droid technology. The use of Vlingo as an added safety precaution should be mandatory for ALL, eventually becoming an industry standard. THINK OF IT AS A CELLULAR SEATBELT !!!
- I love Vlingo. This would make it even better…AND safer. AT&T needs to add this to their app store.
Vlingo also launched a new feature called “Vlingo Answers”. Users simply speak to ask a question, in any form, and have the answer read to them, out loud, immediately. Vlingo’s data currently shows that the most commonly asked question asked to date is “How many feet in a mile?” The answer: 1mile = 5280 feet.
In addition to Vlingo Answers and InCar, Vlingo can power most tasks on AndroidTM devices. Users can simply press the “Vlingo widget” to:
- · Send text and email messages
- · Search the web using Google or Yahoo!
- · Update Facebook and Twitter status
- · Open built-in and 3rd party applications
- · Speak into any application with the Vlingo Everywhere voice keyboard
- · SafeReader – hear incoming text & email messages while you drive
- –• SuperDialer – one-click calling to an infinite address book, and reviews, maps and directions for any business.
- –• Foursquare – check in, connect with friends, or shout out an update on foursquare.
Today’s release also includes include several enhancements:
- Bluetooth headset support for Vlingo and Vlingo InCar beta on AndroidTM 2.2 (Froyo)
- New “Vlingo Control” widget with a SafeReader skip control
- Bug fixes and performance improvements
Availability, Compatibility and Price
Vlingo is available free of charge for Android 2.1, and above. Note Vlingo InCar beta is optimized for Android 2.2 devices. Users worldwide can find and download Vlingo on device from the featured section of Android Market. Note Vlingo is optimized for US English only. Click here to see Vlingo InCar in action.
In response to the great grassroots interest InCar generated, Vlingo’s opening its digital doors so you can tell us how Vlingo makes your life safer. Submit a video through Vlingo’s Facebook Page for a chance to win several great prizes. The winner will also be featured as part of a blog post!
Vlingo plans to roll out this functionality to other Vlingo supported platforms in a future release.
About Vlingo
Vlingo’s intelligent voice applications turn your words into action. Simply speak to your phone to connect with the people, businesses and activities that are important to you. Vlingo is the safest and easiest way to get things done while on the go. Send text and email messages, search the web, use Google maps, update Twitter and more. Founded in 2006, Vlingo is backed by Charles River Ventures, Sigma Partners, Yahoo! and AT&T and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more information, go to www.vlingo.com.
Vlingo is a great app. I don’t use my phone that much in the car to find this too useful, I’m sure others will.
Enjoying this app the only problem is it still ask me to look at my phone a lot.
To make a call it wants me to pick a number instead of reading them to me and allowing me to speak which one I want to dial.
When I ask it a question it wants to exit Vlingo and makes me touch OK and then use the phone to read the answer.
I said update facebook and did fill-in the spoken information I still had to look at phone to click send.
I have sent 10 text message and will say it sent my text perfectly.
Starting to think to get true hands free on a phone you need to make hands free first and foremost and build the OS around it.
I am liking what I am using and look forward to hitting the road.
has anyone had any luck using Vlingo’s Open/launch command? Other than standard apps like clock and calculator I can’t get it to launch other apps. I’d like to be able to start Radiotime to listen to radio stations without touching my phone screen while driving, but if I say “Open Radiotime” it just starts the web browser with “open radiotime” in the search field. It would be nice if Vlingo has a “trainer” program where you could associate certain words with certain apps the way it works for Facebook and Twitter.
@ Jeff B
Agree, it still requires too much interaction with the screen to be considered totally hands free. Luckily I mount my phone on the windshield so it’s not too bad.
I ended up uninstalling it.
It was kind of nice, but the integration with Google Navigation isn’t great (the “Hey Vlingo!” prompt doesn’t work once you’re navigating – which defeats the whole point of this software).
Plus, the Safe Speak feature where it reads your text messages out loud – won’t shut off! Even after killing the app and rebooting, the damned thing won’t shut up when I get a text!!
I know it’s a beta, but it needs MAJOR fixes in these two areas before I can even THINK of using it.
Downloaded Vlingo Voice to my Fascinate a couple days ago and I love this app. I haven’t downloaded the update yet since it’s specifically for 2.2 and I’ve still got 2.1, so I’ll wait for a bit. Aside from that this app works perfectly for me. I had to watch a few YouTube videos to fully understand everything this app does and once I did it’s much more user friendly. Aside from now having a way to txt or email while in the car, I love the fact that I no longer have to manually type a text or email anymore, anywhere. Download this app if you haven’t already, it’s great!
How can this be looked at as anything but another form of texting while driving. Phandroid should take another look at exactly how dangerous Speech to Text is and why nobody working on highway safety endorses this approach. Two thumbs down…sorry guys.
Works perfectly amazing for me! Never had any of these issues. Gets it right 100% of the time! Great job guys! Excited to see what future improvements you come up with.
Weird I dont see Vlingo InCar app in the market place on my phone (HTC Incredible)
You obviously don’t get it Carrie. It keeps you from having to read or write texts not only while driving, but any other time, that’s the beauty of it. It’s voice activated so you don’t even have to touch the phone. I’d say that’s just a tad bit safer then regular texting.
LMAO… T-mobile customers using “Droid” technology, lol…
Vlingo has great potential. But until someone can tell me how to get Vlingo InCar to respond thru my bluetooth headset instead of my Droid 2 speakers, it isn’t that useful to me. The app hears me thru bluetooth fine, I just can’t hear it there.