Vlingo For Android Goes Free In Response To Google Voice Actions

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As we saw yesterday, Google had a few announcements, one of which included the Voice Actions for Android app. And while (as I mentioned yesterday) Android did previously have some support for voice, the Voice Actions app improved upon and added to that. Then again, it seems that Google is not the only player in the voice actions game. Another, which had escaped me up until this point is called Vlingo who has an app called Vlingo: Words to Action.

Images courtesy: AppBrain

The Words to Action app can be found in the Android Market with a simple search for Vlingo. The best part — the app is free. And a little back story here, the app used to be paid. In fact prior to the Google announcement, it was $9.99. And while I feel slightly bad for anyone who purchased the app at full price I have to say it is still worthy of that. I have only played with it for a short while, but so far it seems to work well on my Droid Eris running Android 2.1. But more importantly it removed my overwhelming desire to have Android 2.2 Froyo right now.

That alone is nice, the Vlingo app works on 2.1 and 2.2. But it also has a little more support as compared to the Google Voice Actions app thanks to the support for Twitter and Facebook. In addition, Vlingo also has a feature called SafeReader which reads your incoming text messages and email messages to you.

Otherwise, Vlingo also allows the user to send text messages or email, dial contacts, search the web with Google, use Google Maps and open other applications with voice commands.

Additionally there is some fairly nice integration within Android and the app. For example you can use the Vlingo keyboard which offers the ability to speak anywhere you can type. Plus there is a home screen widget as well as the ability to launch Vlingo with a long press of the search key on your phone.

Bottom line, it is voice for your Android smartphone and it is both free and able to work with more than Froyo. With that, while I was upset that Google made me want Froyo yesterday, I am now thanking them because their announcement lead me to find Vlingo. And also lead Vlingo to lower the price of the app.