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iOS 8 Speech recognition/dictation problems

iPhone 5 with iOS 8.0.2


Since updating to iOS 8 (now at 8.0.2) dictation accuracy has become a problem. I dictate long notes, often with medical terms, or short text messages. In the past there was some error correction required mostly with the medical terms, but now the dictation results are horrible. Where I might have been making one or two corrections previously, now whole paragraphs have to be re-done because most of the words are wrong.


I haven't changed my useage style, or work flow. I'm doing what I have always done, but the results are poor at best. I dictate directly into the phone without a BT headset, in a quiet environment. Usually I'm holding the phone about 6 inches from my mouth, with the bottom pointed at me. I speak normally and don't raise my voice.


A few weeks before the original iOS release, I had the battery replaced (under the program) in this phone. Things seemed ok after that, but then went bad after iOS. I'm wondering if the battery replacement is a contributing factor. That's a bit of a flyer, but I don't want to overlook possible factors.


Is anyone else having an issue like this?

Thanks.

iPhone 5, iOS 8

Posted on Oct 6, 2014 9:56 AM

Reply
16 replies

Jun 26, 2017 3:10 PM in response to dromardishere

I have always been a smart phone users and recently switched to the iPhone. I am highly disappointed in their voice dictation which is absolutely horrible, in addition lightning adapter to the earphone jack has repeated problems when I run it through a PA system and stops constantly. I really hope Apple will look at doing some kind a fix on these very serious problem, they are inexcusable and not even close to the competency of the smart phones I had before, and it's very upsetting as I would really like to have been happy with switching to this iPhone 7!

Jun 26, 2017 3:40 PM in response to Mareemcrae

Mareemcrae wrote:


I have always been a smart phone users and recently switched to the iPhone. I am highly disappointed in their voice dictation which is absolutely horrible,

I, on the other hand, had nothing but trouble with the speech-to-text on my last Samsung (6 Edge +). My iPhone rarely gets it wrong. It's possible that the iPhone may not be the phone for you. No one tool is going to work for everyone. If you purchased the phone from Apple within the last 14 days, you can return it.


Apple isn't reading here. They're not going to magically know that you're having a problem with your phone. For your adapter issue, I'd recommend making an appointment at the Genius Bar at your local Apple Store.

Jan 2, 2015 5:35 AM in response to dromardishere

I also have this problem with iOS 8 on my iPad and iPhone 6+. I noticed it does not seem to "learn" like the other one did. In I OS 7 if it made a mistake and I corrected it a couple of times then it would learn and do it correctly from that point on. It also is putting incorrect words and phrases in much more frequently than the previous version. I am spending much more time having to correct things.


This new version of speech recognition is definitely a few steps backwards from the previous one. I was always amazed at how accurate the previous version of Apple's speech recognition was compared to my friends with their android phones but now they seem equally error-prone.


We made the jump to Apple from PCs a few years ago and were happy with it but now we are seeing a similarity with rushing things to market before they have been adequately tested just as Microsoft does. We are beginning to wonder if the extra money for Apple products is worth it when we are starting to see the same issues and problems and bugginess with Apple that we saw with Microsoft OS.


Most of us chose to spend the extra money for Apple products to avoid the poor quality control and necessity for frequent updates to correct problems that should've been discovered prior to any new version of an operating system being released in the PC world. Apple seems to be favoring the latest cool functions and features whether or not they are necessary above having a stable quality usable product

Feb 3, 2015 6:27 PM in response to dromardishere

I agree!

I just upgraded to iPhone 6 plus. My 5S lacked space to upgrade to iOS 8 ...... so I had been using previous version to dictate until last week.

I was repeatedly impressed with the iPhone's ability to recognize brand name medications, generics, complex medical terms, etc. Each H&P would require maybe 3-4 minor fixes outside of my punctuation mistakes.


Next week, our office will be migrating to a cloud / browser based EMR from VPN / server. In preparation, I went for the bigger screen. I had no idea I would be sacrificing practically all dictation ability. It is dismal.


Have you found a suitable replacement app? I've tried many in the past but always found Apple's abilities to exceed them.


iPhone 6 plus, iOS 8

Feb 7, 2015 9:23 AM in response to dromardishere

I also have had some issues with the new IOS8 speech recognition. Often it will not capitalize the very first word of the message. Occasionally it will not capitalize the first word of a new sentence mid-message, even after saying, "Period." The period punctuation appears, but the following sentence is not capitalized. This does not happen all of the time, however it occurs enough that it is truly an inconvenience.


iPhone 5, IOS 8.1.3

Apr 2, 2015 2:22 PM in response to dromardishere

I work as a solicitor and use apple speech recognition on a daily basis on my iPhone 5 and my iPod touch. Some time ago I recognised that the speech recognition accuracy on my iPhone deteriorated yet although the iPod touch has been updated and operates exactly the same system the high level of accuracy remained on my iPod touch. I am therefore at a loss as to why Speech recognition accuracy has deteriorated on my iPhone but remains at a high level on my iPod touch and my MacBook Pro (2014). I have tried to look for a solution but have frankly given up on the iPhone 5 and will be upgrading to the iPhone 6 which I believe will solve the problem. I tested my iPhone 5 simultaneously with my iPod.

Apr 2, 2015 9:51 PM in response to dromardishere

I have found a solution to the problem. During the update in the operating system the keyboard reverts to the default keyboard which is the American English keyboard. Therefore go to "settings" and "keyboard"and change that from "English" to "English (UK)". You must ensure that you delete the American keyboard which is called "English" and only have the "English (UK)" keyboard listed/active. You should find that dictation accuracy is back to the same high level as before.

Aug 29, 2016 1:35 PM in response to dromardishere

dromardishere wrote:



Is anyone else having an issue like this?

Thanks.

In direct answer to the above question that you have posed: yes. The relevant technical details of this answer are as follows: since about OS 8.0, as you observed, I have noticed a notable decline in the quality of the transcription provided by iOS's built-in dictation features, to the point where I find it virtually impossible to use, and requiring manual correction afterwards 100% of the time. As a conrete real-life technical example of this problem: the other day I was dictating the words "the solution is to switch to android" into a document on my iPad, which the dictation interpreted as, "I'm going to", clearly an egregious technical error in speech recognition. So that's my direct answer to your explicit question.

The Apple support communities terms of use section 2, "Submissions", in subsection 3 states "feedback about product features is welcome as well" (emphasis mine) in this forum, so under that specific term I wish to add this constructive feedback: it would be excellent if this dictation feature functioned well, without requiring a very high degree of manual correction using the keyboard afterwards.

iOS 8 Speech recognition/dictation problems

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