Choice Dialer Fast, hands-free voice control for Android.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the free version have?

Choice Dialer Free is much like Android's Voice Dialer, but it's faster, has voice confirmations, and allows strong recognition results to proceed without confirmation. It also adds shortcuts to find contacts, or start composing a text message or email to a contact.

What does the paid version add?

It adds music-playing commands, calendar event scheduling, a neat Shake-and-Talk launch option, the ability to actually dictate texts and emails, and the ability to enable/disable Bluetooth, wi-fi, ringer, etc.

I am unable to download it from Android Market

If you cannot find, download or purchase from Android Market, you might want to visit their support forum. If you are willing for the short term to just use the free version, here are the latest ones for Android 1.x and Android 2.x.

I downloaded it. How do I get technical support?

You can access the app's Feedback panel by pressing menu when it is listening to you. This is the best initial contact, as the report it sends has a lot of handy diagnostic information that may greatly assist my understanding of your issue.

How do I adjust Choice Dialer, or learn the commands?

Choice Dialer's Help and Settings panels are also found by pressing menu when it is listening to you. There are also spoken commands for these: "Help" and "Settings".

I have trouble getting my confirmations recognized.

The synthesized speech that poses the confirmation questions has the quirk that the question is followed by around 0.8 seconds of silence before my app starts listening again. Pause for a second before speaking and you will do much better. Also, rather than saying "Yes" to confirm a command, say "That's correct" -- it is supported and more easily differentiated from "No".

How do I start Choice Dialer?

If your phone has a hardware 'Call button', Choice Dialer can be assigned to come up on a short or a long press. It can also come up from a long-press on a Search button.

Users can also use a long-press on the camera button or the small button on an iPhone-style headset, but these must be enabled in Choice Dialer's Settings panel.

I encourage you to assign a hardware button to Choice Dialer, as it can be configured to launch your second favorite dialer app by touching the screen after Choice Dialer launches. Choice Dialer's paid version also has a shake-and-talk launch trigger.

What about using the free Button Shortcut app?

Version 1.4.10 has a built-in option to respond to a long-press of the Camera Button (see Settings panel). Choice Dialer is not compatible with Button Shortcut -- you may have to make sure Button Shortcut has no app assigned to the camera button if you wish Choice Dialer to claim this button.

The paid version sometimes launches by itself

This is likely the Shake-and-Talk feature being too sensitive. Go to Settings and disable the feature or slide its adjusting slider further to the right.

How many contacts can Choice Dialer recognize?

Choice Dialer can recognize names of about 1000 contacts (more on Android 2.x phones), depending on the length of the contact names. If you have so many that Choice Dialer cannot load them all, a preference on the Setting panel allows you to only have it recognize the Starred (favorite) contacts.

How many songs/artists/albums can Choice Dialer recognize?

About 3-500 of each (more on Android 2.x), depending on the length of the names. If your song titles contain track numbers, album names and artist names, edit them down or you will have a much lower capacity for "Play the song (title)".

Does Choice Dialer work with Bluetooth headsets?

If you have Android 2.2 or later, and use Choice Dialer Plus, the app will. Otherwise, Choice Dialer speaks to you and listens to you through the handset's speakerphone and switches to your Bluetooth headset only after a call is dialed. This is due to a deficiency in Android prior to the release of Android 2.2 (visit here for more information).

The voice is annoying

I personally don't care for voice confirmation mode unless I am driving. You can toggle confirmation modes from the Settings panel or by saying, "Disable voice confirmation" or "Enable voice confirmation." You can adjust the volume of the voice in Settings.

The hands-free voice is too slow/too fast

In paid versions of Choice Dialer, the speed of the voice can be adjusted from the Settings panel.

I say one name, and Choice Dialer sometimes hears a different one.

Most likely, the speech recognizer is hearing you poorly. Make sure your contacts are all entered with first and last names, that you have minimal background noise, and that you are speaking exactly in the form specified, e.g., "Call Robert Jones at work", and not "Call Robert Jones work". The Help panel specifies the permitted commands in a precise manner.

I say one name, and Choice Dialer always hears a different one.

Choice Dialer may need you to press its Sync button so it will know to look for recent changes in your contact (and/or music) data. There is also a spoken command for this: "Synchronize". Alternatively, it might be that you have it set to recognize "My Contacts" and are speaking the name of a contact in the superset "All Contacts", or you have it set to only recognize the starred (favorite) contacts -- check the Settings panel.

It is not always confirming my commands.

This is a feature, but a bug prior to v1.6.5 may have made it not confirm when it should have. You can set the threshold of confidence Choice Dialer must have in the speech recognizer below which it will ask you to confirm what you said versus just act on faith that it heard you correctly. Visit the Settings panel to see the two sliders that govern this logic.

Your app is assigned to my call/long-press-on-call/long-press-on-search or Bluetooth button and I want something else (or vice-versa).

To find/change what app will respond to the call button, long-press-on-call, long-press-on-search or the Bluetooth button, visit your phone's Settings->Applications->Manage Applications->(app presently using that key) and press "Clear Defaults". The next time you hit the key in question, Android will ask which app you'd like to have handle it, and give you an option to make the choice sticky.

Your app is assigned to my wired headset button or long-press-on-camera button and I want something else.

To prevent Choice Dialer from using either of these keys, you must visit its Settings menu and uncheck their boxes under "Misc Launch Options".

Does it support third-party music player apps?

It supports bTunes and "Cubed". It supports most of Android's default players. If your favorite player is not supported, you might suggest to its developer that they contact me so we can work on it.

These are your FAQs? I have a much better question!

Please feel free to contact me.