iPhone Voice to text issue on iOS 17

I have a workaround that works 100%, as far as I know.

1. First you need to go onto your keyboard settings and add another of the English keyboards, it doesn't matter which country.
2. Then you have to select the new EN (insert country name here) keyboard and delete the broken US English keyboard.
3. Go back to 'settings/general/keyboard' and select 'dictation languages' and MAKE SURE THE (EN-US) KEYBOARD IS DISABLED and the new EN keyboard for another country is enabled.
4. Finally, go back to "settings/general/keyboard' one last time and totally disable/reenable dictation for good measure.

This fix worked for me regardless of the alt EN keyboard used. Just as long as the EN-US keyboard is deleted and the dictation language is totally changed to a different country's version of English - you'll be gtg!

Get with the program Apple. Certainly no time wasted at the opportunity to take my money, but let's just let all of these $1500 iPhones just be crippled until you decide to "update" again. Whatever.

Make sure you have Bluetooth devices in range turned off or turn off the Bluetooth setting for the phone. I found that the failure to transcribe accurately was solved when I turned off my headphone/mic set and my failure to have my voice recognized at all was solved by turning off Bluetooth on phone. I think it is trying to search out the devices and either use their mics or it is confusing the signal in some other way. Thus solved my problem.

I have been having the same problem as almost everyone else on this forum with voice to text not working or not working correctly. I tried changing the keyboard that didn’t work. But I just read what someone posted about other Bluetooth devices that may be connected to my phone causing the problem. Sure enough when I opened the Bluetooth settings it showed that my earbuds were still connected and once I disconnected them voice to text worked fine.

I tried these steps and they worked for me!

”The steps i can remember where to turn off

AUTO beta updates.

turn off dictation for 20 seconds, turn it back on turn off punctuations to for 20 seconds and turn it back on. Turn the phone off turn it back on. Then Reset Siri. then turn off phone and turn it back on. “

Wow, that is amazing. I changed to the Australian keyboard, and immediately voice recognition is much improved. It occurs to me that it might not be specifically because of the Australian keyboard, but maybe because of the accumulated errors to dictation due to crowd-sourced data. I’ve always had this theory that dictation gets worse and worse the more I use it. For example I might say the word “whole” and no matter how clearly I enunciate, it will type “hall”. I’m not sure in what regional dialect “hall” and “whole” (or “hole”) sound indistinguishable, so it is rather mystifying. I will be interested to see if the dictation quality deteriorates as I continue to use the Australian keyboard. And I would be interested if others noticed deterioration over time as well.

(And again to reiterate, degrading dictation quality and accuracy is the topic of this thread. That is distinct from a problem where Voice dictation is non-functioning.)

My iPhone 11 got the 17.4 update last night and I couldn't dictate voice messages today.

Tried a bunch of stuff with no luck. But found this thread and followed this instructions in the post with screen shots to change the keyboard to Australian( English ). This worked for me. Also turning punctuation off and back on improved that also.

As a side comment: The screen shots in that post are dated 2017. Has this problem existed since then? Apple needs to figure out what is going on.

I had the same problem, although I do not use Siri directly. I fixed it by going into settings, Siri, Siri and dictation history, and clicked delete. It immediately started working, so maybe this is the issue?

@Cyclik on page 1 - BRO!! This Worked!!! OMG thank you so much. I was getting ready to chuck my iPhone across the room because the dictation was so bad. I followed your instructions, deleted the US-English keyboard and replaced it with Canada-English and now the dictation is flawless!! And this is with me having slight laryngitis atm! :D

Cannot thank you enough.

NOTE - the only Visual difference is that when I tap the Dictation button it now turns the whole keyboard int a voice-recognition machine, showing the "sound waves" etc. Just a note so others can expect that as well. Just tap the screen (sound waves) again to turn off dictation when you're done. :)

Not to be repetitive like everybody else’s problem - mine is the same. I’ve tried so many different ways to try and fix based on YouTube etc etc etc

The only solution that I have found to be a temporary fix is to completely delete the English US keyboard and add a Australian/New Zealand keyboard which is still English and that made my microphone text voice worked again, and then reinstall the US keyboard but again the microphone text to voice did not work - until the real Apple solution comes - this is best choice

This will fix the dictation-not-working issues on 17.4 for dictation not working at all using the English/US keyboard, (worked for me....so far):

-Add another second keyboard such as Canada/English. Then go in and delete the English/US keyboard.

Next, select and reinstall the English/US keyboard and delete the extra Keyboard you just added. For whatever reason, the deletion and then again adding/installing the English/US keyboard again fixed the issue for me! Not going to install future Public Beta's though, not stable.......lesson learned!

The "fix" until Apple truly fixes the issue is to delete your us keyboard and install the Australian or New Zeeland both work perfectly.

Immediate Fix-

Settings > General > Keyboards > Add New Keyboard > other iPhone keyboards > English (Australia) - tap to get a ✔️

Use globe button at bottom left of keyboard and switch to English (Australia)

[Edited by Moderator]

Strangely, this worked. Honestly, I don't understand why replacing the keyboard affects the dictation. But thank you. I was getting duplicate words, it was dropping words, it was getting stuck spinning when I would try to do and punctuation. And I dictate a lot. It was horrible. I switched to the Canadian keyboard and the only issue is that it's spelling words slightly differently once in a while. I can sure live with that. It did resolve the mess that the updates and the dictation platform.

Thanks again for the fix!!!

[Edited by Moderator]

checking in to report this as a problem as well. Recently moved from an android to iPhone and was appalled with the voice dictation.

also reporting that adding the New Zealand keyboard and removing the US keyboard makes the dictation work perfectly.

That’s a real head scratcher, makes me wonder about the origin of a bug like this and why it doesn’t occur on a different keyboard. This entire message was dictated using the New Zealand keyboard. I’m Texan.

This has been happening to me too. It works fine if I turn my phone off and then on again. It does get a little annoying though. Hopefully they fix it soon.