Although many smartphone owners have confessed to never actually having used this feature, the voice search function is extremely useful. You simply press a button and say what you want your smartphone to find out. No typing necessary.

This is all very well if you’re at home or with people you know. But what if you’re in public and want to search for something? Would you really be happy knowing that everyone else in your vicinity can hear what you’re searching for? One of the advantages of the internet is the fact that it is fairly anonymous. So isn’t the voice search function taking away the privacy that we know and love so much?

Convenient, Fast and Accurate

Once study has revealed that people are becoming increasingly comfortable with using the voice search function on their smartphone. Even when in a public place. People who use the feature like the convenience of it because it’s fast and accurate. It also eliminates the needs to tie up at least one of their hands by typing. They say that the convenience far outweighs the fact that they may lose a small amount of privacy in the first place.

Voice search and virtual assistants on Smartphones are nothing new. Voice dialling has been a feature on mobile phones for about 15 years. Apple introduced Siri on the iPhone 4S all the way back in 2011. Over the last 6 or 7 years the technology has improved greatly and people are generally impressed with how such features now work on smartphones. More than 3 out of 5 people surveyed said that that virtual assistants such as Siri, Google Assistant and Cortana understood them well. They also said that they would be more willing to use them in the future – even if in a public place.

Virtual Assistants

The fact that such assistants are now increasingly appearing around the home may have a part to play.. An increasing number of people are now making their homes ‘smart’ by adding virtual assistants such as Alexa. This means that talking to virtual assistances is becoming more normal, and so people are more inclined to do the same even when they are out in public. Out of the 1,576 people surveyed, over half of them said that they would definitely consider using the voice search function on their mobile phone in public if they heard someone else doing it.

As a result of the increasing popularity of voice search, many apps are integrating voice control functions and consumers seem to be embracing it. Out of the people surveyed, 6 in 10 said they had used the voice feature on their phone for texting. This means that the majority of people are routinely speaking to their smartphones and other gadgets later