Is it just me or is voice to text getting worse?

How very Microsoft to question the clarity of @budwhite’s own voice here! (it-can’t-be-our-software-because-it’s-brilliant etc)

Please at least acknowledge that 30 people have now said “me too” having somehow found their way to this “misplaced” thread. It’s not an easy issue to describe and search for either.

And I know many others who will never get this far, but keep asking me why dictation and predictive text are getting LESS accurate and more frustrating.

Add to that the sudden Random capital letters that appear, and the fact that it’s getting harder to rediscover the letters of the (correct) word typed in (after predictive text has changed it to, say, two words, or capitalised an earlier word in the sentence) and you surely have something that should worry Apple. Is this AI at work? Because it doesn’t augur well for the future if so!

Both dictation and predictive text are definitely getting WORSE not better with each iOS update.

Another thread about the same issue:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8087600?start=0&tstart=0

Also:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/4c60gj/autocorrec t_getting_worse/

Dear IdrisSeabright,

Thanks for this.

Yes I am trying to get help! But I think I may be looking in the wrong place. I put a link to a more appropriate thread above, and I will of course look there.

But let me explain:

This is not a sudden "I updated to iOS xx.x and now...." issue. This is something that I (and others around me) have noticed and remarked upon over many months. Each update to my iPhone SE seems to make dictation and prediction LESS accurate, not more so. Others around me are finding the same issue on other iPhones (6s, 7 etc.) but are less likely than me to look for answers or help. Which is very disappointing, and extremely frustrating.

To the extent that I have stopped using dictation altogether (a real problem for me as I am ill) and this morning I reached the end of my tether when random capital letters once again appeared in text I was typing on my iPhone. Most annoying of all, when I try and go back to return the words to the way I typed them, there isn't even an option to go back to my (correct) typing of the word. This is better expressed in this, which I found on Reddit:

(https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/5v8huh/dear_apple_if_the_keyboard_autoc orrects_a_word_to/)

So in frustration this morning I Googled "iphone dictation predictive text getting worse" and this is where I found my ongoing, worsening problem best articulated.

So maybe my mistake was to look in Apple discussions / support for answers. This feels like something that is way outside our control, and is, I suspect, a bad case of AI. In the other Apple support discussion thread I found about this issue, but just relating to dictation on iOS devices, another frustrated iPhone user expressed it thus:

I'd just really like Apple to look at this issue carefully, when it's pointed out by their loyal users. Otherwise we'll just have to wait for a journalist to notice and turn it into a Big Thing, I guess.

Surely we aren't being unreasonable when we expect our tech to get better over time, as the clever people in Cupertino (and elsewhere) learn more and more. Are we being unreasonable in that?

This is a notable and very unwelcome exception - here things seem to be moving in the wrong direction and getting markedly worse. It reminds me of the downhill journey Microsoft took from the excellent Windows NT - perhaps that's why I mentioned Microsoft earlier!

I'd just prefer it if Apple heard about this from us. Perhaps the people who are "teaching" our phones, through AI, to predict our English have a better understanding of writing code than they do of English grammar....?

Thanks again.

Among other frustrations, when I write a reply and Emma trying to edit it Lola multiple errors it produces I cannot scroll back to the beginning of the message. Did I hear that there was an apple feedback somewhere where company employees actually read text? This is awful. And as you say it’s getting worse. In my case it’s actually changing text and adding profanities After you press send. The capital letters such as in the word ‘after’ above, occur whenever your microphone turns itself off and you have to turn it back on again, the next word is capitalized.

I have been looking for this thread forever, every time I have searched the results were old - like there is never an issue with Apple! I have seen correct sentences transform after I press send, entire paragraphs magically erase and rewrite themselves, text jumps around as it's editing itself even though nothing seems to change. Now it is adding a space before the sentence and highlighting everything just dictated. It capitalizes where it isn't necessary and sometimes will start a sentence with a lower case. It randomly changes the insertion point. And the keyboard sometimes switches to numbers for no reason. I so hate this product and the arrogant way that the problem is always the user's issue and not the bad engineering. With Siri I have had the text of the request be correct and the action be different. It often can't find the correct person. Sometimes a Siri request will correctly transcribe and find the right person, but then open a blank text. It's like there is nobody home. And some of these actions should be able to be done without the internet. You literally can't ask it to dial a contact without good internet, which was something flip phones could do.

Mary London wrote:

So maybe my mistake was to look in Apple discussions / support for answers. This feels like something that is way outside our control, and is, I suspect, a bad case of AI.

I wasn't suggesting that the Apple Support Communities weren't the place to come for help. I specifically suggested that you should start your own thread. Just because you have the same symptoms as other people doesn't always mean you have the same problems.

This is a user-to-user technical support forum. Apple isn't reading here. You can submit your feedback to Apple here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback

Judging by the paucity of threads on the matter, I don't believe that most people are having this problem. And that's going to make it that much harder to figure out what is causing your problem. I'm certainly not experiencing it. Over the years, I've found speech-to-text has improved enormously.

Best of luck.

TrackMaker wrote:

In my experience, it has definitely gotten worse with each new iOS. I have a Samsung phone and it is WAY BETTER at dictating text than the iPad. Do something please, Apple!

Apple is not reading here. If you want them to know how you feel, use the Feedback page:

Product Feedback - Apple

Hi,

As this thread is theoretically about El Capitan, whilst I think most people here (recently, at least) are referring to this problem with iOS on their iPhones or iPads, I have asked the question again in the iPhone support area:

Is it just me, or is autocorrect and voice dictation getting worse?

So if you are experiencing this problem, please could you post in that thread, rather than this one?

That way I guess we all have a better chance of getting some action* (I've also given this feedback to Apple too)

Thanks.

* I mean for Apple to take notice. I for one am very appreciative of the users who have offered helpful advice here, and also encouraged me to give direct feedback too. Thank you. I really hope we can get this sorted, for everyone's sake!

jacquifromNY wrote:

So how do we get Apple's attention on this? I saw that thank you for it, but I never saw the instructions. Thanks

You an submit feedback to Apple here:

Product Feedback - Apple

It will get their attention but they will not answer you.

If you want to actually discuss the matter with Apple Customer Support, start with the Contact Support link at the upper right of every page of the forums.

Best of luck.

I meant to say this response was unhelpful but it seems to have kept it as a helpful and will not let me undo it? (All dictated of course) as it is so much quicker and more efficient than typing. at least it used to be, now I have to keep going back and correcting the mistakes, and I'm not sure if that is slow or not than typing the words in the first place. So for example for this particular paragraph above I had to make 4 corrections. I think you are right about the microphone as my 2008 MacBook is the worst followed by my 2010 iPad and then my six month old iPhone 6s. So on thinking again I think I shall leave it as a helpful as you did mention the microphone.

Mary London wrote:

How very Microsoft to question the clarity of @budwhite’s own voice here! (it-can’t-be-our-software-because-it’s-brilliant etc)

It's actually classic Steve Jobs, "You're holding it wrong".

However, when troubleshooting, it makes a lot of sense to look at the the things that can be tested easily first. More than once, people have responded with things like, "I have Siri set to <different country than my own> because I like the accent" or "Well, yes I'm from France but no one in New York has ever had trouble understanding me". If the person responds with "Actually, I'm an NPR announcer", then we know that's not the problem and can move on to other possibilities.

What's even more interesting to me is why resurrect a thread that's been dormant for six months? You're far more likely to get help if you start your own, new thread. Assuming, of course, that seeking help is your purpose here.

Hello again IdrisSeabright,

I just wanted to say a big thank you to you for taking the time and trouble to look into this issue for me and try to help. I didn't actually know there was an Apple Feedback page as such, so you have also helped me learn something new today!

All these support / discussion pages are a really excellent resource and have provided me with great, easy-to-understand answers to all sorts of Mac-related issues.

Thank you again.

Mary

This is in reply to anyone iPhone, I have a iPhone X brand new December 2017 every time I try to speak a text it completely says different things.

For example I text my daughter her name is Emily and it said I was calling Williams Smith I don’t know where I got any of this from.

I am new here. I want to chime in that I find it very weak and frustrating. Every time I have ever used a friends Samsung phone or tested one, it always seems MUCH better at this, my favorite feature. I have never owned a non apple phone. I am considering a switch because of this issue. Perhaps the only way to "cross test" is to jump ship and try it.

I think a lot of this may be a resources issue on the part of Apple. I think their computer gets overwhelmed when lots of people are using it. I have noticed that there are peak times of the day where speech recognition is horrible. If you do it early in the morning or late at night

I am shocked at how bad the voice to text is!!! I moved over to apple from android and this in my experience is the worst issue I have. Android was 10 times better at voice to text

In a busy world, simple productivity tasks like this are so important