I’m sure I’m not the only person around who struggles getting my iPhone to understand my commands. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s trying to call someone or play something on the iPod, unless I speak like a Wall-E and only want really simple things it doesn’t play ball.

The first speech recogniser was developed in the early 1950s, which begs the question: If it’s been around for almost 60 years, why isn’t there a better one on my iPhone? When the 3GS was announced last summer they made a big deal of the new features, which were Video, Voice Control and the Compass. Out of the three I’d say only the video capture is of a decent quality. The compass is about as accurate as a drunken man playing ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’ and the Voice control misunderstands more than I would with my head under water. It’s not a feature I use incredibly often, but when I’m walking home in the cold, and I want to quickly call my wife, I’d like to do it without having to remove my phone from my pocket, and out of it’s sleeve before making a call.

So what is the big problem? I’d love to know why they can’t get it right. The person I most like to call, or most often call, is my wife, who’s name is Elouise. Now, I’m going to play a little experiment and call her using Voice Control, pronouncing her name in as many conceivable ways as possible. Here’s the list of responses to “Call Elouise” :

“Calling Lois Fallon”

“No match found”

“Calling Sarah Louise”

“Calling Lewis Powell”

This is possibly the most infuriating situation that can occur with an iPhone, well, for me anyhow. So what’s the solution? I’ve had to create a new contact named ‘My Wife,’ which thankfully, the iPhone understands.

Apple, it’s not much like you to add a feature on to a device merely as a gimmick. Please fix it!

I’d actually be interested to see how many of our readers feel the same way, and if so, what are the most unusual responses you’ve had from iPhone.