Google adds voice search for Maps on WinMo and Symbian

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Google Maps gets chatty with Symbian and WinMo phones
Google Maps gets chatty with Symbian and WinMo phones

Google has announced it's updating Google Maps for mobile to include voice search for your Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 phones.

This means that when you want to look up a place to go to, simply press the 'call' key and state your intentions to the phone – and it can recognise some pretty obtuse questions apparently.

You can ask it to search for a specific address (17 Rue de la Mer), a business (Starbucks) or a type of place (coffee shops).

If your phone is GPS enabled, it will search in the immediate area – but you know how Google Maps works already, and this is just a voice option on top.

Ey lad, gooin' up t'shops, where be Costa?

There will also be a redesigned settings page, with 'many English accents and Mandarin Chinese' supported too according to Google.

This seems to be related to the announcement of Google Maps Navigation in the UK yesterday, where Android phones in the UK are now capable of running as full san nav devices.

We can't see why you'd be desperate to voice search when walking around town on your WinMo phone – while yes, it is easier, you have to reconcile that against looking like a fool shouting commands at your mobile phone.

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Gareth Beavis
Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.