Smartphone Update: Voice Enabled Services

I hope that you own a smartphone. The time when your mobile communication was limited to SMS or a phone call is behind us! Embrace smartphones and the internet in your hand. Instant message via AIM, gChat, Blackberry Messenger. The fact that it lets you know when your friend is typing a response makes waiting for an SMS reply seem like putting a message in a bottle. It's the main reason holding me back from the iPhone, big time. There are of course a ton of other benefits of the smartphone. Access to the internet from anywhere is truly game changing, even if it's just on your couch. (Aside: I'm looking to build a service on top of mobile instant messaging, so I may be a bit biased, but I hope that more of you do get yourselves into it.)

I read a lot of blogs (see blog roll at left), and I sometimes use google reader's mobile web site to do it. It's not perfect. You have to have an internet connection, which is unfortunate, because I really want to use it on the subway. There should be a google gears enabled version where I can download the unread blog posts to my device and read them whenever I want.

One thing that I've done with my Blackberry is download programs that take advantage of my voice. There are two that I use from time to time. Yahoo! Voice Search and Jott are both useful services. Voice enabled products can be tough sometimes because lots of words sound alike. However, these two are still useful.

Jott is especially useful because you can integrate it with other web services like Remember the Milk or Twitter. You don't actually even need a smart phone, because it has an 866 number that you call to interact. I don't use it as much as I should, but I really do like this service.

Yahoo Voice Search is less useful because my phone has a full keyboard. If you have an oldschool phone, both of these services might be much more useful. Though, you might have to deal with paying the data charges to download them originally.

So, this isn't a really in depth review of any of these services, but I wasn't sure what to write about today. Anyways, take advantage of the services and please please please get yourself a smartphone and get on mobile instant messaging.

What other programs have you downloaded to your mobile device? What do you use that you couldn't live without?