Google to unveil Voice Actions at I/O: control any app with just your voice

We’ve already found out that a new version of Android will be unveiled at Google I/O, but the conference schedule contains more clues about Google’s plans for the close future. Among them, Voice Actions, a new accessibility feature that will let developers add voice controls to their apps with minimal effort.

References to Voice Actions are found in a sandbox session scheduled for the first day of the conference called “Your app, now available hands-free.” The session’s description hints at a completely touch-free way to interact with apps. Presumably, this will be something like Google Now’s voice commands, but available for all apps, not just Google’s. Control playback in Spotify? Change the filters in Instagram? There’s no limit on what developers can do with Voice Actions, provided the feature can really be implemented “with little to no development overhead.”

Mobile hardware has adopted the touch screen as the primary mode of input. And with 1 billion active Android users, there’s no sign of this slowing down. What if you could provide users with a new method of access to your apps with little to no development overhead? In this talk, we will discuss ways to give anyone access to their Android device through voice alone.

From the sound of it, the feature will be dependent on Android M, though there’s a chance Google will make it available through a Play Services update, in which case Voice Actions may run on older versions as well.

With three weeks to go to our favorite time of the year, more details about Google’s plans are bound to leak out. What do you hope to see in Android M?