Why Maluuba
Maluuba does more than add a pretty voice to tell you it’s searching for something. Several features are added while others are enhanced. As mentioned earlier, one of the big benefits is the ability to say what you want to do in everyday speak.
Maluuba will give you voice access to several applications and and other functions not readily accessible with the standard Android voice input. For example, by saying: “tweet what is the best tea to drink when you’re sick?”. Maluuba will open the Twitter application and input what you asked it to tweet. Similarly you can do the same with Facebook and FourSquare. This makes checking in a lot less of a pain.
Using the Maluuba widget is probably the easiest way to start using your voice to activate the functions. By pressing the microphone button, a bar will pop up on the bottom of the screen to let you know it’s listening. Ask what’s going on today and the events tab will come up and show you local events. Alternatively you can type in commands.
What else can Maluuba do?
Swiping the screen to the side will unveil one of two screens. Sliding to the left will show the metro tiles with different search categories. This is the Explore tab. You can quickly and easily search for a local restaurant, movie or event to name a few. Most of the search results will have tabs within the tile. These tabs may be common searches or they may give you more detail. The weather tile gives you tabs for today, details, hourly and week.
Swiping to the right will take you to the current day in the calendar. You will see all of your appointments. If nothing is scheduled, you’ll see options to add an event or a task or a reminder. These features are also options if you have appointments displayed. Look at the bottom of the screen and see the icons to add items to your calendar.
Final thought
If you are looking for an alternative to one of the built-in voice applications some manufacturers are installing on their devices, Maluuba is a great place to start. The learning curve is low because you can pretty much say what you want to do and Maluuba will do it. Keep in mind if you use an application to access your social media accounts, email or other functions, you may have not be able to control them with Maluuba. How do you control your Android applications with your voice? Maluuba
