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Dictation makes participating in forums awesome on the new iPad

G

Gregintosh

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jan 29, 2008
1,950
581
Chicago
I don't know how many of you have tried dictation yet, but it is awesome for writing on the forums instead of typing.

Granted, some people who are in the room may or may not be annoyed with you saying everything you are typing, but it is sure as hell quicker than having to type everything with the onscreen keyboard.

And since that is very accurate, it actually makes less mistakes too. I wrote this entire post through dictation
 
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Gregintosh said:
I don't know how many of you have tried dictation yet, but it is awesome for writing on the forums instead of typing.

Granted, some people who are in the roommate or may not be annoyed with you saying everything you are typing, but it is sure as hell quicker than having to type everything with the onscreen keyboard.

And since that is very accurate, it actually makes less mistakes too. I wrote this entire post through dictation
Click to expand...

Don't think it understands my Scottish accent very well so not so sure about it. lol
 
ZBoater said:
You missed a period there at the end. :p
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I sure did. I guess I have to get in the habit of saying every punctuation mark. This will take some time getting used to but I should get the hang of it.

And yes MO, I guess this only applies to people who are understood by Siri. I guess I am one of the lucky ones.
 
Has anyone noticed it seems to respond more quickly (get what you said typed out) than on the 4S. Idk if my network just kicked up for a while or maybe the iPad really is quicker at communicating with the Siri servers.
 
I think it's great you're using that feature. I hope more people start getting used to using voice dictation and Siri on their devices. I use it all the time and would love to see other people start to benefit more from this technology.
 
dspalton said:
Few questions

how do you get comas in, and numbers ie iPad 2

david
Click to expand...

you just say comma, and it will put one in, and just saying iPad 2 will produce that, it is all the data they have been farming from the siri beta that has it pretty good by now.
 
You actually have to say the word comma when you want to insert a comma. It also does a decent job of transcribing numbers, for example 5675. Those are numbers I dictated.

I am also noticing that it handles the dictation very quickly. This may be because I am on Wi-Fi and have a very high speed Internet connection. Also maybe the iPad actually does some client-side processing too.

Maybe someone with the 4G version to tell us if it's fast over the high-speed connection too. Although the better comparison would be a 3G connection since 4G may be just as fast as my broadband home.

Dictation with a little bit of tweaking could really replace the idea of having an external keyboard for people who need to create content. Of course this wouldn't work in public places, but if you're traveling and you were using your iPad in the hotel room you can easily dictate instead of whipping out the keyboard and then typing for hours on end.
 
It's not too bad, it gets 90% of what I'm saying, but for me I'd rather type, I feel wierd sitting here talking to my iPad. And I feel I can type just as quick as I can talk, and if It messes up I have to go back and correct it anyway.

I'd rather it was Siri, as I think voice commands are better than dictation, and I'd use them a lot more like quickly setting up a reminder or getting a calculation or conversion. Hopefully we'll see Siri in iOS 6.
 
Imagine you talking to your iPad in public, then waving it around taking pictures.

Welcome to the 21st century! Computer! Activate holo-deck!!!
 
This is my first attempt at using dictation on the new iPad. I've been debating whether or not to return the new iPad, but this is a factor which makes me want to keep it. Very nice.
 
Yeah the dictation is okay. It probably picks up about 80 to 90% of what I'm saying. I also find I use it for texting a lot too.

This was definitely a feature I didn't expect to be using but now that I am, I love it
 
It seems to get about 95% of my words, even when speaking fast. I was really impressed. It wasn't a feature I was looking forward to with the new model but it's one that I think I will actually use.
 
ZBoater said:
Imagine you talking to your iPad in public, then waving it around taking pictures.

Welcome to the 21st century! Computer! Activate holo-deck!!!
Click to expand...

That will be me.

----------

I get about 95% accuracy on my dictation.
 
Gregintosh said:
I don't know how many of you have tried dictation yet, but it is awesome for writing on the forums instead of typing.

Granted, some people who are in the room may or may not be annoyed with you saying everything you are typing, but it is sure as hell quicker than having to type everything with the onscreen keyboard.

And since that is very accurate, it actually makes less mistakes too. I wrote this entire post through dictation
Click to expand...

I agree. I'm also posting this via the iPad dictation feature it's my favorite so far.
I really like it especially since its difficult sometimes to type with the iPad because it's so big -- it's a lifesaver
 
Are there headphones with a built-in mic that would work with this? I don't like yelling into my iPad.
 
Macclone said:
Are there headphones with a built-in mic that would work with this? I don't like yelling into my iPad.
Click to expand...

Speak at a regular tone, it will hear you. It works fine for me.

I know the compulsion is there to yell into it, much like there is a compulsion for me to put the iPhone 4S up to my mouth when I want to use Siri, but its really not necessary.

You just have to get used to it.
 
I love this feature! It works much better than I thought it would. I do feel self-conscious talking to my iPad though. :eek:
 
I'm using dictation for this post.

Last night while I was playing around with dictation, I found it to be about 90% or 95% accurate. I think it takes time for it to get used to your voice.

As a test, I said the biggest word I knew, "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and it got it right the very first time! I see that it got it right this time too!

For fun, try saying these three words together, "all, oil, oral". it took dictation several times to get this right.
 
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