iPhone Voice to Text punctuation not working - iOS 17 Update

Hi Kyzmett,

We definitely understand how essential it is that you're able to rely on Accessibility features like dictation to use your iPhone. Updates can often include fixes for unexpected behavior. iOS 16.2 was released since you posted your question, so let's start with getting your device up to date using the steps in Update your iPhone or iPad.

Update your iPhone or iPad wirelessly

1. Back up your device using iCloud or your computer.
2. Plug your device into power and connect to the internet with Wi-Fi.
3. Go to Settings > General, then tap Software Update.
4. If you see more than one software update option available, choose the one that you want to install.
5. Tap Install Now. If you see Download and Install instead, tap it to download the update, enter your passcode, then tap Install Now. If you don't know your passcode, learn what to do.

After you've updated, let us know if you continue to see issues with dictation, your Home screen, or streaming. We look forward to hearing the results.

Regards.

I've been having the same problem. I cannot stand when others try to put punctuation in for me that I did not before. I'm super happy we got a solution to this because Apple was getting it all wrong. If you go into settings, general, keyboard, dictation, switch enable dictation, and switch off auto punctuation. It worked for me!

Go to Settings > General > Keyboard > and turn off Auto-Punctuation under Dictation. Go to Settings > General > Keyboard and turn off Smart Punctuation under All Keyboards.

I've posted here and feel everyone's pain. I did receive some good information from someone that posted here previously and it's making things a little bit better. Definitely not completely fixed but a little bit better. You need to turn off auto punctuation. Go to settings, general, then turn off auto punctuation under the dictation area. Hope this helps a little for you

I just went to my state's accessibility services to try to get help.

Essentially-- Siri's dictation, which worked well in the past, no longer works. I have the same troubles as everyone else-- It capitalizes randomly, sprinkles commas where they don't belong, duplicates text, and though it will type words correctly initially-- it sometimes changes them after a second to be the wrong words. (Even when the wrong word makes no grammatical sense.)

Here are the free solutions I was given. (Essentially, give up on Apple and shift to other software solutions.)

Microsoft's dictation worked much better. Though of course, that's in their software. (Go to the Edit menu and turn on dictation.) The laptop version works GREAT. The iPhone/iPad version work, but a little less well.

Google Chrome's browser has an extension called, "Voice in," that allows users to have 60 minutes of free dictation each day. (And one can buy more.) Unfortunately, this is only available on the desktop version, not the Chrome browser for iPad and iPhone.

If you go to settings- general- keyboard -dictation , you can switch off auto punctuation.

CRAPPY PUNCTUATION FIXED! Someone else commented this, but I'll reinforce it: Settings > General > Keyboards, then toggle "auto punctuation" to off.

Just found this. Although I’m sure you guys have already figured it out by now.

Go to Settings > General > Keyboard > and turn off Auto-Punctuation under Dictation. Go to Settings > General > Keyboard and turn off Smart Punctuation under All Keyboards.

I have turned off Auto-Punctuation, which has mitigated the problem to some extent. However, that's not all that's wrong with the voice to text function. One really irritating thing is the appalling use of English in places - for example translating "could have" and "would have" into the grammatically incorrect and ugly: "could of" and "would of". Even "could've" or "would've" would have been better. Surely Apple would employ someone who knows basic English to help program the feature.

I agree. I have a theory. I have been contacted over the last couple of years to perform translations, transcriptions and editing to improve AI and voice to text. I am a translator and linguist. However, I didn’t participate because AI was attempting to replace professionals in my field. What they have been trying to do for years is save our translation memories using software and the work we do , and then save it to their programs so that AI can then work as well as we can. In addition, the pay for doing the work is extremely low and well below industry standards, so it is common practice to not support this kind of thing. What a lot of employers do in order to get by is to hire non-native speakers. The kind of mistakes I am seeing in voice to text is absolutely the kind of mistakes non-native English speakers would be making. Not only do I notice typical grammatical mistakes, it seems that the voice to text is unable to recognize common English phrases, expressions and cultural references. I am pretty sure it’s because the people that worked on the voice to text were non-native speakers of English, and that those who were used to train AI didn’t have the proper skill set. That’s my take on it. Now just imagine AI applications that control life altering equipment being fed less than accurate data in much the same way. It’s a problem.

I am so grateful to have read these messages from other Apple users. Ever since I updated to the last two updates, I have experienced the exact same issues with the voice to text. To be specific when I do voice to text it has periods where you don’t need them commas where you don’t need them capitalize certain things that don’t need to be capitalized. Then I have to go back to every single text or email and correct all of the mistakes. It turns out it is taking much more time to do this, then typing out a message which I do not have the capability of always doing.

I as well was disappointed with your response to. Kyzmett. Not only does he have a disorder and needs this to be fixed, but telling us to restart our phone, etc. is a bit of a slap in the face. This is a true issue. We are having and doing what you suggested is not fixing it. Believe me I have tried. I am not one to go onto these communities, but I am so frustrated with how much time it is wasting in my day That I had to Google if other people are having the same issue. And thank goodness, they are meaning you will hopefully do something about it. Please do something about this! Don’t just think there’s only a few of us it is affecting. It’s, just a few of us of actually taking the time to reach out.

I have not corrected any of the periods, commas, or capitalization and punctuation.

Thank you for taking this matter seriously and correcting it. It is not an issue with our phones. It is an issue with your software that needs to be corrected.

Thank you.

Yes! If Apple were to enable Siri to add APPROPRIATE punctuation when translating speech to text, so that users didn’t have to say “comma” and “period,” that would be great — assuming it got the punctuation right. But Siri doesn’t get it right. And it doesn’t just make occasional, understandable errors; it makes ridiculous, inexcusable errors. It’s as if periods and commas are just scattered at random through my text. How in heaven’s name did this ever get into production?

I found that just turning off Auto-Punctuation solved the problem of spurious, unwanted commas. I prefer to leave Smart Punctuation on because that's what gives me curly quote marks and turns two hyphens into a dash.

Mcfadcat wrote:

I am having the same problem with the punctuation. Also, it is so sensitive. It picks up every word from any surrounding device. This is ridiculous.

Go to Settings>General>Keyboard and turn off Smart Punctuation and Auto-Punctuation.

Kyzmett,

The best place to get all those looked into would either be contacting Apple directly or leaving feedback:

• Get Support
• Product Feedback - Apple

Take care.