The Tensor processor in the Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro opens up a world of new features for everyone who uses Google's latest phones But perhaps none is as impressive as the Assistant's voice input It can dictate messages and e-mails instead of laboriously tapping away at an on-screen keyboard

"I don't need the Pixel 6 to dictate messages," you may be muttering right now But it's definitely not as thorough as the Pixel 6's Tensor-powered assistant Voice Typing It can also dictate emojis

This is an impressive feature to use in practice And according to a head-to-head comparison of the Pixel 6 and iPhone 13, Google is far ahead of Apple Here's how the Assistant's voice input works

The Assistant's voice input leverages the machine learning capabilities at the core of Google's Tensor silicon to better recognize what you are saying when you choose to dictate instead of type a message Since we speak faster than we type, the Assistant's voice input should save you time At least in theory

The power of Assistant Voice Typing lies in the fact that it does not just transcribe the words you are speaking The feature automatically inserts punctuation, so you don't have to utter words like "period" or "question mark It is also smart enough to recognize which punctuation marks to use For example, a question ends with a question mark

And that's not all You can also use your voice to insert emojis into your message; say something like "heart emoji" and the appropriate graphic will be displayed In addition, messages can now be sent using voice commands, creating a truly hands-free experience

Assistant Voice Typing also allows for voice correction in case transcription does not work This feature requires some tapping to move the cursor or select the wrong word

First things first: Make sure your Pixel 6 is set to recognize voice input Go into Messages or Gmail and bring up the on-screen keyboard Tap the "Settings" icon on the keyboard and select "Dictation" on the subsequent screen From there, just make sure the Assistant's Dictation toggle is turned on

Google says that saying "Hey Google, Type" in a message conversation will enter dictation mode, but the assistant will usually start reading out the dictionary definition of "type" Better yet, tap the microphone at the top of the on-screen keyboard (This differs from the microphone in the text field itself, which starts recording a voice message and does not activate dictation)

When the microphone icon lights up, a multicolored ring appears around the bottom, and the message "Speak now to voice type" appears, the Pixel 6 is ready to hear and note what you have to say

Part of the Tensor magic is triggered when you stop speaking and start sending messages Simply say "send" and Assistant Voice Typing will smartly send a text or email (What if you need the word "send" in your message? In my testing, I found that this feature is smart enough to read the context For example, reciting the lyrics to Sam Cooke's "You Send Me" does not trick Assistant Voice Typing into fast-forwarding the message)

Other voice commands, such as "Clear" and "Clear All," are useful for editing messages--the former deletes the last sentence, the latter the entire message "Delete" deletes the immediately preceding word, while "Undo" undoes any inadvertent clearing or deletion

Voice commands are also useful when entering email fields, allowing you to jump between fields with "next" and "previous" They can also be entered more directly by saying commands such as "Set Recipient" or "Set Subject"

In theory, any app with an on-screen keyboard can be voice-activated by pressing the microphone button However, not all apps seem to be optimized for voice input in the assistant For example, the Twitter app allowed voice input of tweets, but punctuation did not seem to be as accurate as Google's built-in app, and there seemed to be no voice command to send a tweet Similarly, in Chrome, I could speak a web address, but could not find a way to send the browser to that page without resorting to tapping

The apps that seem best suited for the Assistant's voice input are Messages and Gmail at this time, which not only allow you to dictate text with surprising accuracy, but also use voice commands

Comparing the Pixel 6's voice typing capabilities to other phones shows the power of Tensor; I used Assistant Voice Typing in the Messages app on the Pixel 6 and Siri Assistant on the iPhone 13

The difference is stark: on the Pixel 6, two of the three sentences in my message were punctuated more or less appropriately The last sentence was missing a period, and the string of meal choices I mentioned was not separated by commas On the iPhone, however, the message appeared as one rambling sentence dictated by a madman

Siri was smart enough to capitalize the "Chinese" in "Chinese food" as in assistant voice input However, it did not convert the "heart emoji" into the appropriate graphic Also, when sending a message, one had to physically tap the iPhone screen to stop recording and manually send the message, whereas the Pixel 6 simply used voice commands

The Assistant's voice input is just one of many new voice-related features fueled by the Tensor chipset; the Live Translate feature is available not only in the Messages app, but also in WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook Messenger Lite, and other Live Caption translates audio and video into five languages

While it is no secret that Pixel can recognize text in images, Pixel 6 can translate any foreign language using 55 offline languages and an additional 104 languages with an Internet connection The Interpreter mode is different from the Translate app available on the iPhone, which translates by listening to different languages alternately

Google is also experimenting with Assistant commands that no longer require the wake phrase "Hey Google" For now, it can respond to incoming calls by saying "answer" or "decline" The same can be done to snooze or stop an alarm

Taken together, the above is a fairly powerful array of voice features, with Tensor playing a large part; Tensor's machine learning skills seem to be an important part of the process However, it is easy to see why Google was so eager to introduce a new system-on-chip for smartphones