iPhone Dictation not working iOS 16

I spent hours with Apple customer service today working on this issue. I updated my phone about a week ago and dictation and series stopped working yesterday. I was able to get dictation to work by changing my language to English UK version as well but that has not fixed the Siri issue. I have an appointment with a Genius Bar tomorrow at the Apple Store but after reading this I’m thinking about cancelling it since it doesn’t seem like they’re going to be able to fix that issue tomorrow and I don’t wanna waste my money or time.

Yes it is driving me crazy! When I am dictating a long response I don’t want to have to go back and delete all the “period” words. There’s so many people in this post you would think Apple would have put out a new iOS update by them. Apple please get on this before I get an android.

Chrisfnicholson that was REALLY REALLY funny - favourite & colour….

So I took a chance & actually walked into my local Apple Store to see about the dictation problem. In addition to the issues you all cited - inaccurate dictation (adding words/phrases not even close to what I actually said) there is a SUPER annoying little window popping up numerous times making SURE I really want to keep dictating in the language I’m using. Can’t stop it & it covers the text I’ve just dictated so I can’t check for mistakes. GET IT TOGETHER APPLE.

So update...I did what everyone suggested - adding English UK, English NZ & English Canada and used them for a few days. (man, that was harder than I thought. Period/dot/full stoop...cheesh!) & just now deleted those & added the American English back in. Looks OK, but I'm still assessing, so we'll see how that goes. In the meantime, has anyone figured out a work-around to that little window that pops up a million times while you're trying to create a text message? Mine shows up in English & in my other language & continues to ask me if I want to continue dictating. I did ask at the person at Apple store, but this was the same person who said she had never heard of ANY dictation problems, so I turn to you REAL geniuses to see if anyone has solved this. Thanks!

It actually has auto punctuation now. So, if you pause at the end of a sentence, it will place the period there automatically. If you pause in the middle of a sentence, it will place a comma there as well…

Same thing. I have updated and dictation is not working. I get a microphone with x button on it. I’ve tried everything. This is really disappointing that a critical feature not working and Apple has not released a fix yet. Please help!

This is what worked for me to correct the issue:

go to settings, general, software update. There should be something that shows an update to IOS 16.1

I clicked on that, it updated to 16.1 which fixed the problem.

Hope this helps.

Having the same issue. iPhone 14 Pro on 16.1 and can’t use dictation at all switched to UK keyboard and nothing it wont show a keyboard when i tap microphone it just goes to the voice microphone visual and removes the keyboard. Still nothing works.

So **** frustrating. This is the first time in years and years of buying only Apple products that makes me wanna switch over to android.

Dictation is a lifeline for a lot of people & a great convenience that we have all gotten used to. If Apple can’t figure this out they’re going to start losing a lot more customers.

I’m so over it.

Hi Manbike: it’s not that my dictation is not working. It IS working but so badly it’s a joke. It’s just very inaccurate since I upgraded to 16.0. It puts words in that I didn’t say, missed words I do say - not even close to what I intended. It’s to the point where I can’t really use that feature anymore and it was very critical to me. So it’s the inaccuracy that I’m talking about. I don’t really understand with a company as large & innovative as Apple, how an important feature that people depend upon has gotten WORSE with time.

Strange how some of these "workarounds" fix some phones, but not on others. Most of it is only temporary. Apple needs to adopt an ostrich with a deep hole in the ground for its new image.

So disappointed in their lack of resolution to this serious issue.

After automatic update to iOS 16.1.1, my voice to text and Siri dictation are screwed up but my Voice Memos and speaker phone work fine. I deleted keyboards, added them back, reset my network, reset all...nothing helps. Siri and voice to text seem to only start listening AFTER I've spoken several words, so they both miss the first part of everything I say. HELP?

Oh llacher1 - I feel your pain. I got multiple notices that my phone was going to automatically update to 16.1 & didn’t. Now after reading your post I’m glad it hasn’t. I’m suffering enough in 16.0. This is an ENORMOUS problem that Apple needs to solve. For those of us loyal Apple customers this is really unacceptable. And we’re powerless just waiting for the Apple tech experts to FIX THIS. Next phone upgrade I’m going to research android phones.

More on this...I tried adding & deleting loads of keyboards and noticed that, in some cases, the grey box with the little sound volume bars shows up at the bottom of the screen, which should indicate that it's listening to my voice. But in English (US), that doesn't happen at all. Even when the box does show, my voice isn't heard. And when I try to record a voice memo from the message app and then play it back, it's all garbled like my phone is in a distant trash can. Oddly, speaker phone and voice memo (outside of message app) still work just fine. Apple needs to permit an UNDO of automatic updates!

So far the “warning” that my phone will automatically update to 16.1 has been showing up for 3 days now & it hasn’t happened so there’s that. This so far is one of the worst upgrade screw ups I’ve ever experienced with Apple. Wish I’d never upgraded but then if you don’t, apps don’t work. We’re kinda like prisoners in the Apple world.

APPLE ARE YOU LISTENING??