I’m sitting on my couch watching tv with my girlfriend and she asked me Google something for her. Well, being the MS guy I am I figured I’d Bing it on my Surface Pro. Yes, there’s a detachable keyboard and a well made onscreen keyboard but I was feeling vocal. My phone (WP8) lets me do voice search so I figured my computer could too. Boy, was I wrong.
I opened the Bing app and scoured for a little microphone icon. No such luck. Then I pulled up the onscreen keyboarding hoping it was hidden there. Nothing. Now I go to Bing.com to see if their full-blown site supports voice search. Still nada. I actually had to type in my search query. What is this, the stone ages?
Microsoft needs to adopt Geico’s slogan, “So easy even a caveman can do it.” And then they need to execute on it! Apple and Google make it very easy to use voice search on their devices. Whether it is through Siri or Google Now or some random widget on Android, users can easily voice search. I hope a Bing product manager reads this and says, “You know what Nik, you’re right. You’re the man. I’m going to have my summer intern from Princeton work on that right now. Thanks broski!”
No problem Bing guy. Happy to help! Don’t get me wrong, I like your keyboards and all but my voice is much more soothing.