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

Sep 18, 2016 10:52 AM in response to Mike K

I finally came to search for answers after suffering through weeks of apparent decline in accuracy on this. I am on the road 2.5 hours a day and depend on speech recognition a lot. It used to work reasonably well - navigation location, text, email, web and contact search etc. Starting a few weeks ago, I found myself having to redo the dictates, often resulting in my yelling into my iphone and/or exaggerating on the enunciation of my words. But it would still fail and it was so maddening.

I had thought it has to do with my dropping the phone around that time and affecting the microphone or something, and now it looks like I am not alone at all.

I tried Teeski's suggestion above just a moment ago (I added UK English, deleted (US) English and kept Canadian. At first try, it appears better. Time will tell.