Positive feedback from the press:

CNET's Josh Lowensohn: "Yap does voice to text for your phone"

Here's a useful concept: say you're really sick of dealing with your phone's tiny keypad to type in text messages. What if you could simply say what you wanted to write down, and have the tool fill it in for you? Yap is a new service that's trying to fill that need with their new mobile phone client.

CrunchGear's Ilya Kochanov: "Yap: Voice-To-Text Translation On Your Cell":

This is pretty sweet, Yap lets you send text messages just by talking into your phone. We’ve seen services like this before but the speech interpretation aspect has been porked. No word on how well this works yet but we’re assuming it won’t be that bad. Call it faith. The software also allows you to query web services like Google, Wikipedia, or YouTube with nothing but your voice.

Houston Chronicle's James Kendrick: "Yap wows the TechChrunch 40":

The premise is simple, you use the clean Yap interface to speak text messages into your phone and Yap converts them to text and sends them in one pass. It's quick and effective and the company showed in their demo that ads can be returned when appropriate which makes for an actual business case for this free service.

Mobile Messaging 2.0's Russell Shaw: "Yap wins most votes of any mobile company at TechCrunch40"

Monitoring the TechCrunch 40 conference from my electronic cottage, I noted that presentations from five mobile services providers were a key part of Monday’s events.

Voting after these presentations provided a clear winner.

That’d be Yap, a voice-to-text translation services provider. Yap was the only one of the five mobile companies to score a 4.0 or above on a five-criteria scale that included "idea," "execution," and "presentation."

San Francisco Chronicle's Ryan Kim: "Why type when you can Yap?":

This could be a godsend for people who would like to text in their car and actually attempt it, much to the horror of other drivers. You can also imagine that IMing on a cell phone, one of those tough tasks, could actually come alive for cell phone users.

TechCrunch's Duncan Riley:

Voice recognition engine works well, question is will SMS TXTing kiddies rather use voice? I would, but then again I suck at txting.

Yap also provides responses to things like Starbucks Coffee, flight arrivals at SFO. Full interface with Yap and mobile browser and other phone parts. Links into Amazon.

Yahoo! Tech's Gina Hughes: "Yap: Hands-Free Texting for Everyone":

Texting and driving has lead to countless accidents around the world prompting laws that restrict cellphone use behind the wheel. Statistics show teenage drivers are the most dangerous since they're easily distracted, have higher crash rates than older drivers, and are usually involved in cellphone related accidents... On the bright side, an upcoming mobile application may help teens keep their eyes on the road while they yap on the phone. Yap will soon release a mobile application that turns voice into text, making it easier to text, IM, or blog without typing.