Hathology

Long story short… if you want to use the Voice Control feature on the iPhone 3GS, hold down the Home button for a couple of seconds. It will make a sound and vibrate letting you know it is ready for the command.

Now, the full story…

When I first purchased my iPhone 3GS, one of the features I looked forward to use the most was the new Voice Control feature. I had owned the iPhone 3G and originally thought this feature was going to be part of the iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade but it was not. You have to have the latest hardware in the iPhone 3GS in order to use this feature.

When I first got my iPhone 3GS activated and ready to use, I went to use the Voice Control feature and unlike most every other iPhone feature, the Voice Control feature was not obvious. I’ve never had to pick up an iPhone manual to figure out a feature and I wasn’t going to start now. So I thought about it for a minute and realized the point of the feature is to be able to take an action in a hands free mode. The only real way to do this would be if you could trigger it without unlocking the phone. So I looked and there are only two real buttons on the phone. I figured it wasn’t going to be the power button so it had to be the home button. Sure enough, if you hold down the Home button for a couple seconds, the phone will make a unique tone sound and vibrate. This lets you know you can speak the voice command without having to even look at the phone.

This is a great new feature to the iPhone and one that I welcome. It allows you to have a true “eyes free” experience with the iPhone. The extension of the voice commands into the iPod controls is also great. Just another example of the iPhone leading the way in mobile devices.