Apple hunts for iOS speech, sync specialists
updated 04:10 pm EST, Fri March 4, 2011
Company looking to enhance voice commands?
Apple has opened a series of job positions which may indicate where the company is headed with iOS, notes AppleInsider. Three of these are for "iOS Speech Operations Engineers," who will be assigned to work with the iOS Application Frameworks team based in Cupertino. Apple is asking that candidates have experience with voice recognition systems such as Google Voice, Nuance Recognizer or IBM WebSphere Voice.
The company may be planning to expand the voice recognition options of iOS. Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have hinted at the prospect, which may be necessary from Apple's perspective to counter the more elaborate Voice Actions system present in Google's Android. Whereas Android users can control a variety of apps, iOS users can only command calls or music playback.
Three other openings are meanwhile connected to the iPhone and sync functions. Two carry the title "iPhone Sync Development Engineer," with the aim of hiring people knowledgeable in "system architecture, client/server systems and a strong understanding of threading and performance." The remaining job, "iPhone Sync QA Engineer," requires "testing sync functionality in Apple's innovative new phone."
Apple is likely exploring two sync-related projects at present. In the short term the company is probably continuing work on an overhauled MobileMe, which should allow remote access to a person's media library. For local sync Apple may be contemplating Thunderbolt ports on iOS devices, which could increase speeds by as much as 20 times. The only computers with Thunderbolt ports so far are the 2011 MacBook Pros.
