Technology has its limits. I'll be the first to admit this. Voice technology isn't quite up to speed with real human voices, in fact, it's downright creepy. Apple decided to throw caution to the wind and released the new iPod Shuffle: complete with VoiceOver. That's right, a creepy voice will tell you what song you're listening to, and the name of your playlists.
As a concept, this is kind of an amazing idea, especially for the iPod Shuffle. Without the screen, sometimes you just don't know what song is playing. It also allows you to have multiple playlists on your iPod shuffle. Rather than scanning through your playlists using a screen, the iPod Shuffle with VoiceOver will read the playlists aloud to you.
But that doesn't mean I want my iPod to talk to me and tell me what I'm listening to or what playlists I have on it. Especially when it uses a creepy serial killer voice.
The technology uses "intelligent algorithms" to determine which language to use when pronouncing song titles or artists names. It "speaks" (and I use the term "speaks" in the loosest way possible) 14 languages.
Does that mean my iPod will know how to properly pronounce Björk? Because that's kind of amazing - serial killer voice or not.
If you listen to the samples on Apple's website, you'll notice they are even worse than those that accompany navigation systems. Although, I found nothing to indicate that you could select the gender of the serial killer voice that speaks to you from your iPod. I'm assuming you can, especially if it can master 14 languages.
Is anyone else laughing their ass off at Digital Serial Killer Dave's attempt to say "Lady Gaga" in the artist sample? I know I am.
Image from Apple.