User Guide

1. Overview

mypie provides mobile access and control of Google mail, contact and calendar information using voice and screen commands with Android phones. Utilizing the voice media for both input commands and output result, mypie allows the users to manage their information without using their hands or eyes. For example, users can search their email using simple voice commands, to enter mail subjects and sender names as keywords. Such features save the time and effort for manually typing in long search queries.

In addition to the voice commands, mypie also accepts visual commands from screen menu and soft keypad. Both input media, the voice and the screen, are simultaneously active during a mypie session. Users can choose either of the command modes interchangably to complete an action on their email, contact and calendars. Both voice and visual modalities support complete set of commands as users can rely on a single modality entirely to complete a given task.

mypie is currently in private Beta stage, meaning that the team is identifying technical issues and evaluating mypie's usability. Please send your feedback to beta@mypie.net. Your input will greatly be appreciated

2. mypie setup

To setup the mypie Android application, open up the Android Market using an Adnroid phone. Then search for mypie application to download. Once downloaded, start the mypie to open up registration/login window. Currently, mypie is in private Beta stage, which requires the Beta password to register. Please send a Beta request to beta@mypie.net to obtain the password.

2.1 mypie demo is open to public

If you want to try mypie without registration, you can login to the demo account from the mypie registration window opened up when it is started for the first time. The 10-difit user id is 4085827373 and the PIN is 1234. You just need to enter this information to login into the mypie demo account, mypie.demo@gmail.com. You can send emails to this account to test how mypie supports voice searching your email.

3. mypie session

After entering the user id and the PIN, mypie starts a session with a wireless secure connection established to its backend server. Since starting up a mypie session requires this server connection, mypie login may sometimes take a little while. When mypie cannot establish a connection, it aborts the login to let the user try in an environment with better wireless connection.

4. Control mypie microphone and speaker

When mypie starts, its microphone and speaker become active. The microphone picks up any sounds to determine if a valid voice command uttered. And the speaker plays the mypie prompts for input commands.

Either or both of these audio devices can be disabled by touching the icon on the screen. When it's disabled, a red cross is shown on the icon. Once disabled, the microphone cannot catch any voice input, or the speaker cannot play any prompts. In order to enable, just touching the icon again, then the device becomes active.

5. mypie dialog

All mypie tasks are driven by dialog between the user and the mypie. mypie responds to every input command with voice and screen output. Users can choose either voice or screen commands for a desired task. Using voice commands, users can make a short cut to complete many tasks which may otherwise take multiple screen interactions.

5.1 Main menu

When mypie starts, it shows the main menu screen with 3 main menu tabs: Mail, Contact, Calendar. Clicking one of these menu tabs will open up the selected application. Speaking out, 'Mail', 'Contact', or 'Calendar' will produce the same result.

5.2 Mail menu

The mail menu supports four verb commands: check, search, send, and notify. The check and search commands fetch a list of e-mails qualified for the check and search condition. The send command sends out an e-mail with voice message attachment, either to be recorded instantly, or pre-recorded prior to the session. The notify command is to check and/or to update e-mail filters for generating e-mail notification.

5.2.1 mail check

Mail check fetches a list of email messages received during the specified time period. The fetched e-mail list is sorted by the mail arrival time, and the messages in the list are presented either in the order of newest message first (default), or oldest message first. The message listing order is determined by the new user configuration, which can be changed with the main menu account command.

5.2.2 mail check new

This command fetches the list of newly received email messages since the last time the user checks the email.

5.2.3 mail check [today | yesterday | September 15th]

This command returns all e-mails received today. Note that you can shortcut to this command with a single utterance of, 'mail check today', from the main menu.

5.2.4 mail search

The mail search command finds out email messages with their sender or subject information matching the search keywords in the query. For the sender search, you can say either the first name or the last name, or you can say the full name of the sender.

A mail search request can be made with time period constraint, such as today, yesterday or any date or week period desired.

3.2.2 Searching mail from the sender, Tom

You can say, 'mail from Tom today', to get the mails that Tom sent today.

5.3 Contact menu

5.4 Calendar menu

5.5 Navigation commands - go-back and main-menu

mypie supports two special commands for navigation: 'main-menu' and 'go-back'. When you want to return to the main menu from anywhere, just say, 'main-menu' as mypie will bring you to the main menu immediately. With keypad, press 0 to deploy the 'main-menu' command.

When you want to move just one step back, rather than going all the way back to the main menu, say, 'go-back'. The go-back handler will bring you to the previous menu. Pressing the back-key in Android will produce the same outcome.