iPhone Dictation not working iOS 16

For 16.0.3 I was able to get German back by deleting German keyboards, turning off all the networks, rebooting and adding them again and changing Siri to German. After testing it it worked. I was even able to reset Siri to English and it still recognizes German but that didn’t work for other languages and some apps like duolingo are still broken—only the keyboard mic works. But it’s something.

Under Language and Region, I changed my preferred language to French. Phone soft refreshed to the new language then I changed it back to English. This fixed both issues with siri and dictation.

I had the same problem here’s what worked for me.

Go to Siri and Search and change the Language. I picked French. Restart iOS and it magically worked. Oddly, the playback voice was still English even though the French setting had taken effect. I switched back to English and everything’s working so far.

Dictation isn't working for me in my standard keyboard (English U.S.) either. Thanks to this thread I added English Australia and it works just fine when I select that keyboard. Also had to switch Siri and Search to English Australia for that to work.

I sure hope Apple releases a fix to the English US keyboard and Siri and Search asap.

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.

Go to settings; screen time; content and privacy restrictions; Allowed Apps; enable Siri & Dictation. Also do not forget to click the microphone on the onscreen keyboard.

Wanted to add...so I had heard about others switching the languages from English (US) to English (UK) for both the keyboard and Siri. Indeed switching to English (UK) on the keyboard worked but its not a real solution since they use different spellings. That being said (and I know this isn't too technical) but I switched through all the English options, (India, Canada, Australia) and after going through all just for the keyboard...it somehow fixed the English (US) setting for both the keyboard and Siri. Mind you simply going once from English (US) to English (UK) and back to English (US) wasn't enough. Some combination of trying all them "fixed" something somehow as both are now working for me again. Come on Apple, you have to do better than this!

Partial solution for non-English: I noticed problems appearing in non-English dictation. Thankfully English hasn’t stopped working but quality is much worse. For other languages that stopped working: First I noticed in apps like Duolingo that speech recognition didn’t work for German but at least before 16.0.3 Spanish still worked and German worked only from the keyboard. After 16.0.3 Spanish and German from the keyboard stopped working and didn’t work in other apps like DeepL. I followed all the steps toggling the settings, resetting network connections etc. I removed all the keyboards except English and tried different locations (Switzerland, Spain, Latin America, US Spanish etc). But only after changing Siri’s language to German did it start dictating German from the mike on the keyboard & DeepL. This technique didn’t work for Spanish. I couldn’t get it to work no matter what. But the English dictation is significantly degraded in quality since 16. I am a native US speaker of English (without a regional accent) and it is much worse now. At least I was able to get German to work again and it stayed that way even though I changed Siri back to English. But apps like Duolingo still don’t recognize speech. But notes and Siri at least recognize English and German but still it’s unfortunate that Spanish is still broken.

Just spent over an hour with Apple customer service. tried turning off and on all kinds of things, nothing helped. Suggested workaround is to add the English UK keyboard until they figure it out or get an update out. Super disappointing. I rely on dictation heavily.

Tried multiple solutions and this one did it for me. Changed the languages on my keyboard one at a time. Added an English language, test dictation, add different English language, remove previous one. Then add English US back and it/dictation works again.

Mine seems to be fixed. I enabled English UK, English New Zealand and English Canada. Then bounced to UK, New Zealand and Canada a few times and then came back to US and it is working for about two days straight now without any issue. I have no idea how or why I’m just glad that it does. Obviously there’s a bug in there that APPLE needs to fix but the workaround of using English from other countries a few times seems to have reset my English US. That’s that for now.

I just noticed this issue today. Same issue as everyone else with IOS 16.0.2. Changing to English/UK keyboard works. Weird.

This is weird, but adding the English (UK) keyboard fixed the issue!

And I read about that solution and tried it just for "fun" only AFTER the Apple agent had my wipe and restore my phone entirely.

This is weird, but adding the English (UK) keyboard fixed the issue!

And I read about that solution and tried it just for "fun" only AFTER the Apple agent had my wipe and restore my phone entirely.

I was able to work around this by removing the English (United States) keyboard from dictation as well as removing English (United States) from language under Siri and search and changed then to English (Australian). It works, unsure why. However, there is no difference.