Droid X2: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition

Chapter 14. Controlling the Droid X2 with Your Voice

You’ll spend a lot of time talking into your Droid X2 when you make phone calls, certainly. But you can do a lot more with your voice as well. Want to send a text messages, get directions to a city or street address, and visit a website? Rather than having your fingers do the walking, have your voice do the talking, and you can do all that and more.

You do all this using an app built into the Droid X2 called Voice. It’s simple and straightforward, as you’ll see in this chapter. There’s a related app that lets you search the Web using your voice, and you’ll learn all about that as well.

Two Ways to Control the Droid X2 by Voice

You have two ways to control the Droid X2 with your voice—using Voice Actions and using Voice Commands. Voice Commands are generally more limited than Voice Actions—you can’t, for example, dictate an email or text message using them, or search the Web. However, you can use Voice Commands to do such things as checking your battery status or looking up a contact, which you can’t do with Voice Actions.

You’ll use Voice Actions more than Voice Commands, but you’ll likely want to try both.

Using the Magic of Voice Actions

Possibly the most amazing part of Droid X2’s Voice Actions feature is this: The only thing you really need to know is how to talk. Your voice is its command.

Launch it in one of three ways:

• Hold down the Search key.

• Tap the Voice icon to the right of the Google Search box.

• Run the Voice Search app from ...