I don’t remember when this changed, past couple of years anyway. I used to be able to use Siri to take a text and could say things like “Change” or “Add” after she read it back to me. I can no longer do this. Are there new keywords or is that functionality just gone?
I think Apple has removed some functionality in the past few years but it’s hard to prove.
I can definitively say that functionality is gone! Unfortunately.
I use dictation on the iPhone for short bursts (emails, texts, etc.), so it’s more than sufficient for those needs. But on the Mac, it’s a whole different story.
I would have thought Apple could have more or less “perfected” the feature by now (since it’s been available for many years). I’ve used dictation several times for projects on my Mac and found that correcting all the (admittedly minor) issues is more tedius for me than using OCR or typing it myself.
I have to wonder if Apple Intelligence is somehow tied to this and, hopefully, will be fixed eventually.
Now here’s a curious thing. I’ve recently acquired an Apple Watch. Both my iPhone and the Watch are running the latest versions of their respective operating systems (26.2). But dictation on the Watch is free of a great many of the irritations of dictation on the iPhone.
Go figure…
I was just thinking of this thread today, as I tried repeatedly to get Siri to stop navigation on the phone. For the last few months it has rarely worked. She just beeps a few times and says there’s a problem.
I’ve been frustrated by Apple dictation for years. For both Mac and iPhone, I’ve settled on using Spokenly and Super Whisper. Both are paid subscriptions but can be used entirely locally for free. In Mac I’m just on Spokenly and it works pretty flawlessly. On iPhone, I’m oscillating between Spokenly and Super Whisper, both of which have their issues but are streets ahead of Apple dictation. That said, both work via a custom keyboard, and there are occasional hiccups or bugs where the app switches unexpectedly after clicking the custom “dictate” button and sometimes does and sometimes does not return to the app or field in which I intended to type. I won’t lie, it can be annoying.
Anyway, they’re both free, so I encourage anyone frustrated with Apple dictation and capable with basic AI to give it a try.
The killer feature is you can use your own preset post-processing AI prompts to process your text before it’s pasted into your field after dictation. I use this to inject commands to my dictation, e.g. if I finish a statement with “translate to French” the entire transcription is translated to French after it’s been cleaned up. It also works with emoji descriptions. If you ever watched people talk to Circle in that terrible Netflix show The Circle, I’ve tuned my prompt to understand those types of instructions so it can parse the difference between what is meant to be transcribed and actions that should be applied to the transcription.
I dictated this entire response in Spokenly on my iPhone!
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Interesting responses, but I’m still baffled as to why dictation is better in watchOS than in iOS when they are both running the most up-to-date versions of their respective operating systems. I recently encountered some Ludacris – well, there you go, a perfect example! And why does the wretched software keep capitalising words at random? It even capitalised the word ‘the’ in the middle of a sentence the other day.
It’s sad to read of the ongoing frustration with this! I haven’t tried to converse with my Mac or any other devices in the decades since early versions came out, so gave up, and found it weird anyway.
That said, since we don’t know how this software works in detail, I think we can reliably figure it digitizes what comes into the mic and tries to turn the data points/sound waves into text. If so, there could be so to speak hardware issues independent of the (very many audio related) software settings going on.
Such as, iPhone or other device mic input port dirty, background noise, interference of iPhone handling (tapping on iPhone, setting it on a surface etc). For those seeing poor performance of dictation, maybe using earbuds/airpods/an actual mic connected physically or over BT would help?
Maybe not a convenient workaround but if it turns out to improve the dication quality then maybe the software is not the bad guy.
I think – and someone please correct me if I’m wrongI think – and someone please correct me if I’m wrong – that dictation on both iPhone and watch require online connectivity. The implication of this is that some of the processing occurs on Apple servers. If this is true, then – assuming both devices are working properly – dictation should be equally accurate on both iPhone and watch. This is manifestly not my experience.
By the way, the phrase repetition above was generated by dictation and not by me.
As for why I use dictation, my iPhone is a 13 mini and my fat fingers have trouble with the on screen keyboard. On the iPhone that is – on the watch it is only usable with a stylus.
Dictation doesn’t inherently require connectivity. To test, go into Airplane Mode, turn off Wi-Fi, and then try to dictate. Worked fine for me on the iPhone and the Apple Watch.
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I will try that: thanks.
Dictation apps seem to be forcing new skills onto their message recipients, as in ‘This is nonsense – I wonder what they actually said?’ It can have a humorous element. Over the recent festive season a pal messaged me to say how much they had enjoyed sharing ‘mould wine’ with their friends.
It is, I suppose, better than the old predictive text on dumb phones. My old Nokia would transcribe ‘scots’ to ‘pants’. What did it know?
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I’ve long wished that Apple would add “change spelling to m u l l e d” to the list of messaging commands. I frequently just use “change it” and start afresh.
I’ve sent some right clangers in my time.
When dictating a text, Siri used to respond to “change” or “add” after she read it back to you and asked if you were ready to send. That disappeared, and as someone who often texts while bike riding with my phone deep in a pocket, I find very annoying.
I also will swear that there are times the text looks ok (dictation or not) and when I see it again in a reply, there’s a word or two that I am sure weren’t there when I hit send. I can’t prove it though!
There’s a certain grace period, a couple of seconds before it is sent, then you can change or add to it. But yes there’s no check with you.
It is likely confused about Ludicris. “Ludacris” is an American rapper and actor. “Ludicrous” is the word that I think you meant.