Both Rick and I have pointed out the great new(ish) Google products for cellphones: 1-800-GOOG-411 and Google SMS. Deciding which one to use is more than a matter of preferring to talk or use your thumbs, though.
I use GOOG-411 when I’m driving or walking and need to find something fast. As Steven Leckart at Cool Tools points out, it gives you the option of directly connecting you to whichever business you’re trying to reach, so that saves time and minutes. Plus, if you say “text me,” it will send you an SMS with all the details of the place as well as a link to a map of the area. The robot listening in isn’t the best with my slight southern drawl, though. He often thinks I’m saying “Pacifico, California” rather than “San Francisco, California.” Also, I’ve got a PDA, meaning that I sometimes have to think hard before remembering that GOOG = 4664.
Google SMS has lots of features that GOOG-411 lacks, like flight arrival details, and language translations. You can even set your ZIP code so that the big G knows where you’re searching from. It’s hard to use while driving, obviously, and sometimes it gets so feature-rich that you may need to carry around a decidedly analog PDF printout to remind you how to use all the features.
To recap: GOOG-411 for finding places when you’re lost. Google SMS for everything else.
