Apple looking to bring Google Voice Search-like functionality to iOS?

Apple’s job listings are usually a good indication of what’s to come and tonight Apple began searching for four engineers with a specific focus on voice technologies in iOS. These four positions (1,2,3,4) break up into an iOS Speech Application Engineer, two Speech Recognition Engineers, and a Senior Speech Research Scientist. With three different job types, all with a focus on voice recognition, Apple appears to be serious about this.

Are you looking to contribute to a product that is redefining the smartphone? The iOS Application Frameworks team is looking for an exceptional Speech Engineer. You will work with our team on a wide variety of speech-related development activities. We need a team player – you will be working closely with engineers on the Application Frameworks team as well as other teams at Apple – and we need someone who is comfortable working in a fast paced environment with rapidly changing priorities.

What is even more interesting is where Apple wants the potential applicants to have experience. Have you heard of Nuance’s voice recognition software? How about Google’s Voice recognizing Cloud used in Android OS? Well, Apple prefers the engineers working on iOS’s voice recognition to have “demonstrated experience with Nuance Recognizer, IBM WebSphere Voice, Google Voice Search, or similar voice search tools.”

You may recall Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak saying something about Nuance’s voice technology in connection to Apple, then denying it, or you may have heard about Apple’s acquisition of Artificial Intelligence company Siri. It seems to all be coming together now. Check out a video of Siri’s voice recognition software running on iPhone for a peek into iOS’s future.

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