Apple is said to have recently filed a new patent application that describes sophisticated voice recognition technology that would allow greater control of the iPhone compared to before. The iPhone currently includes a Voice Control feature but this feature is generally said to remain unnoticed by a vast majority of users. The latest patent entitled “User Profiling for Voice Input Processing” described how an iPhone could be used to perform more complex tasks than is currently possible today. An example of this would be creating a Genius playlist featuring a certain artist. You could just ask for it to do that. You can call your good friend or parents by just saying their name. The patent goes into detail describing how an iPhone would be able to understand and process extremely complex tasks using nothing more than just a few voice commands. The current beta version of iOS 5 includes several references to new voice recognition technology from Nuance, the creators of Dragon Dictation. This will give the iPhone a whole new level of voice control across the entire operating system. If Apple pans to improve the voice commands on the iPhone, it might signal the beginning of a whole new level of interaction with the device. The thought of never having to touch your device arises, more so the freedom of not having to clean those fingerprint marks off the screens! When Apple acquired Siri in 2010, it was thought that their voice recognition software would be incorporated into a future version of iOS. Since that time, it has been unclear what Apple has done with Siri’s software. Currently Android and Windows Phone 7 devices both have more robust voice control features when compared to the iPhone. Apple is going to be playing catch-up if they want to stay ahead in this aspect of the market as well. It seems that Apple has patents for a large number of features but many of these patents never surface again. Hopefully that won’t be the case with this one as well. Authors: