Google Search/Google Voice get confused

KennyDWR

New Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2013
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Brand new Droid 4. When entering text using the screen keyboard, pressing the mic button brings up Google voice recognition that works, i.e. it translates the dictation and enters it into the document. With the mechanical keyboard, pressing the mic key (shift-tab) brings up Google search instead, and my dictation becomes a search request.

Any way to fix, or a warranty problem (or actually meant to do that)?
 

ricpdjrr

Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2012
Messages
41
Reaction score
0
Brand new Droid 4. When entering text using the screen keyboard, pressing the mic button brings up Google voice recognition that works, i.e. it translates the dictation and enters it into the document. With the mechanical keyboard, pressing the mic key (shift-tab) brings up Google search instead, and my dictation becomes a search request.

Any way to fix, or a warranty problem (or actually meant to do that)?


Any ideas on this??? I have the same problem and have not found a solution yet..
 
OP
K

KennyDWR

New Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2013
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
After working my way through 4 levels of support at Verizon and Motorola, I was informed that the phone was designed that way! That is, the MIC button on the slide-out keyboard will only take me to Google Search. They say the only to use voice dictation is to use the virtual keyboard. Small consolation: Every tech I spoke with seem to agree with me that this is a surprising (if not downright stupid) feature of the Droid 4. But I'm curious if anyone's experience was contrary, that is, has anyone been able to use the MIC key on the slide-out to invoke voice dictation?
 

ricpdjrr

Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2012
Messages
41
Reaction score
0
After working my way through 4 levels of support at Verizon and Motorola, I was informed that the phone was designed that way! That is, the MIC button on the slide-out keyboard will only take me to Google Search. They say the only to use voice dictation is to use the virtual keyboard. Small consolation: Every tech I spoke with seem to agree with me that this is a surprising (if not downright stupid) feature of the Droid 4. But I'm curious if anyone's experience was contrary, that is, has anyone been able to use the MIC key on the slide-out to invoke voice dictation?


Thanks for the reply, I have been looking all over for a easy answer but have not found one yet. I know it is possible with Tasker but it will take some work. I can capture the button press with secure settings but I will have to figure out how to invoke the 'voice to text' with a intent . I will be sure to post back here when I get it working.

Rich..
 

ricpdjrr

Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2012
Messages
41
Reaction score
0
Would be great to have a workaround.

Would be great to have a workaround.

A little more info..

originally I had a droid 4 with gingerbread and had not updated to avoid problems such as this . Unfortunately she was getting old and worn, I had worn off alot of the keys on the keyboard, the speaker was bad and the battery was getting weak. So without any good slide out keyboard options out there for updating I decided to buy a lightly used droid 4 off ebay and finally update the OS at the same time. Here is what have noticed so far..

In gingerbread when I was in any text input field the mic button would bring up voice recognition and If I was anywhere else it would open Google voice search. Exactly what you would expect. This was effected by the soft keyboard that was selected. In other words if I used certain soft keyboards the voice recognition would not work.

In jellybean the soft keyboard selection does not seem to affect the hard keyboard features at all.

So I believe whatever jellybean changed they were just to lazy/ cheap to implement the same functionality ...

As for the work around so far it looks like it will require root...

I thinI will look into keyboard remapping to try and fix all the other stupid problems with the jellybean and hard keyboard.... i
 
OP
K

KennyDWR

New Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2013
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Thank you for this info. Interesting. I upgraded from a Droid 3, on which the mic keys worked just as you described for your used Droid 4. Afraid I am not advanced enough to know what Gingerbread and Jellybean actually are (although I have gotten wind that Jellybean has created some dissatisfaction for numerous users.)

However, your experience conflicts with the assertion of the Motorola team that the problem is hardware based and as such impossible to change. Clearly, the function did change when you "upgraded" to Jellybean.
 

ricpdjrr

Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2012
Messages
41
Reaction score
0
Yea.. its never there fault....

Gingerbread is what the operating system version is called. After that there was Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) then Jelly Bean and now there is Kit Kat. It does not look like they will be offering Kit Kat for the droid 4 which would be the only hope for a fix but most likely would bring more problems with it.

I was just thinking about this as I was typing and realized your post is the only one I found for this particular problem. There have been many posts about the shift key and other PIA issues with the keyboard. So I am starting to wonder if going through the ICS update might have let most droid 4 users keep this functionality. As I skipped the ICS and went straight to Jellybean. This does sound Unlikely though...

This is definitely a software issue and could very well be fixed with a update but I know better then to waste my time trying to convince Motorola or Google (who are the same now) to implement a fix on there end.

I will keep you posted on the work around. I am leaning towards the key board remap but unfortunately this will require root as well..
 

ricpdjrr

Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2012
Messages
41
Reaction score
0
** edit. **

After more testing i realized you do not need root for this to work.... :)

Ok... I have been able to get this working with tasker and I actually like it better then the stock recognizer app because now i can customize it to my needs. If any one is interested i can make it into a android app for them. Here is what you will need to do..

1. You do "NOT" need root.....
2. You will need to download the app and install it.
3. There are 2 other helper apps that will need to be downloaded as well, 'secure settings' and 'cntl v keyboard' these are tasker plugins that help tasker do what it needs to do.

Thats It.. let me know if any one is interested...

Sent from my DROID4 using Tapatalk
 
Top