Google announced the newest version of Voice Search rather quietly today, and along with the new version comes a slew of new features that are sure to shock and impress. Android’s voice functionality has largely been limited to calling, navigating, and Google searching — in addition to transcribing text — and, while it has served its purpose well, we’ve all wished at some point or another that it could do more. Today, that wish is granted. Read on after the break for more details on the new functionality added today.

Having updated and launched Voice Search, you will be greeted with a new welcome screen intended to acquaint you with the new commands at your disposal, as well as an instructional video. The video’s play button is essentially a hyperlink which launches the YouTube player and automatically loads the video. The other options can be scrolled through horizontally.

You are greeted with an instructional screen on first launch

The new functions added to Voice Search are Send Text, Send E-mail, Map Of, Note-to-Self, Go To, and Listen To, which are in addition to the commands that already existed. Each command works just about as you’d expect them to, with a few exceptions we will cover further on.

The Send Text command is probably my favorite new addition to the phone’s already stellar voice controls. After telling the phone to Send text to… your contact of choice, the voice control app will bring up its own SMS interface rather than launch the Messaging app. When you tap on the message body field, a bubble pops up with options for either the virtual keyboard or speech-to-text. After using the voice option, your transcribed text will appear.

In our tests, clear and well-spoken words transcribed very easily and surprisingly fast, even faster than I had grown accustomed to. Hasty speech was not so speedy, and was moderately inaccurate, although it appears Google’s algorithms are improving, as it was better than it has been in the past. If the phone isn’t sure about a word it will be highlighted in blue, and tapping them brings up possible corrections. Funnily enough, my Droid got most words correct on the first run, while the possible suggestions were pretty out-there in terms of accuracy.

Tapping highlighted words brings up possible corrections

It needs to be noted that when you press the Send button on the Voice Search’s SMS UI, it will ask you whether you want to use Messaging or Google Voice (if you have it installed) to complete the action, while third-party SMS apps like Handcent will not show up. This is nothing to worry about – choosing the default Messaging app is fine, as the Send button doesn’t actually launch it, it just uses it in the background. The sent message will still show up in Handcent.

Emails, on the other hand, are slightly less streamlined. The process is largely the same as sending a text, although there are added buttons for Subject, CC, and BCC. Pressing the send button, however, does not fire off your email in the background — it launches the GMail app with your message in a new composition, and requires you to press the send button again from within that application.

The Map Of… command is a useful function for quickly finding certain locations around you. Asking for a “Map of gas stations,” for example, will launch Google Maps with nearby gas stations pinned. It doesn’t provide you with directions, of course, so it is to be used in conjunction with the older Directions to command.

The Note to Self command is one of those things that shocks you with its simplicity and usefulness, which is something Google excels at. Rather than having to open a notepad app, write out a note and save it, one need only open the voice search (which can be done by holding down the search button) and start off with Note to self… before going on with your message.

Your new note will be sent in an email

When you’re satisfied with the contents of your note and press the Send button, it will pop up as a newly-composed message in GMail, as with the Send Email command. This new message is self-addressed and will show up in your own inbox.

the Listen To command is the one new feature that, as mentioned above, doesn’t quite act as you expect it to. It cannot be used in conjunction with the phone’s own music player, which we found a bit ludicrous. Rather, this command is meant to be used along with an Internet radio app such as Pandora or Last.fm. The first time you use the command, it will tell you that there are several apps it can be used with, along with a link to an instructional website. The page provides a list of different apps you can use it with.

For our test, we used Pandora. It worked very well — telling the phone to Listen to Led Zeppelin immediately searched for them and loaded Led Zeppelin Radio in about five seconds.

Overall, we’re pretty satisfied with this update. The new functionality is very welcome and executed very well overall, with the exception of just a few little kinks to work out. My personal hope is that the Listen To command is updated in the future to be compatible with the music player. As it is, though, we are very happy. You can use the QR Code below to jump directly to the application in the Android Market.

Scan this QR Code to get the Voice Search app