More Than Mangled Messages! VLingo Also Ate Half My Phonebook + 648 Emails.

Note2Self: Do NOT beta test anything on the Blackberry. Do not even fall for version 1.1. No matter how cool it seems, no matter how easily it installs. No matter how many blogs swear that it’s ready for prime time.

Note2Self #2: The next time you hear the siren-call of “state of the art voice recognition software” or even “Voice-enabled”, RUN for the hills, even if said hills are teeming with rattlesnakes like the ones here in Carmel Valley. Haven’t you been falling for those sexy vox promises going way back to Dragon Naturally Speaking Software circa 1996?

Here’s what the smart folks at the usually reliable Lifehack said about Vlingo:

Voice-enable your Blackberry with Vlingo, which goes beyond voice-dialing to voice-texting and even voice-emailing. Vlingo takes over one of your Blackberry’s application keys (my Curve has two, one on each side; I’ve assigned it to the one on the right, the one that controls the camera by default). Hold the key down, say a command, and Vlingo goes to work. For example, I say “Send email to Bob Smith subject You’re an idiot Message You forgot to take the coffee off your car’s roof as you drove away” and Vlingo creates an email reading “You forgot to take the coffee off your car’s roof as you drove away” with the subject line “You’re an idiot” and the email address from Bob Smith from my Blackberry’s address book. You can search the web, update your Facebook status, create tasks and memos, even open built-in applications and a handful of third-party Vlingo-enabled apps, all using your voice.

It would be so lovely if the above gushing geeky paragraph were true. But aside from the disappearing phonebook and email snafu, what I got when speaking clearly and distinctly into my beloved Berry “I am testing Vlingo and sending a message to you” was “D lingo is beating Paul with you.” Now folks, I am a former (really bad) weathergirl and (really good) dj. I rid myself of any lingering Cheesehead accents years ago. So when I tried again with my perfectly enunciated vowels and consonants, and the text that emerged from Vlingo was “org hooking by d ing”, I reluctantly resigned myself to the currently sorry state of Voice-enabled technology and hit delete.

Note2Self#3: Before installing any new app, check to make sure that the FAQ includes UNINSTALL directions in addition to INSTALL. Nowhere on Vlingo’s site — including the Troubleshooting and User Info — could I find information on how to UNINSTALL. And an email sent to them has so far gone unanswered.