iOS 8.1 "Dictation"

[lookatchu]

Shortly after downloading, I was composing an email and tapped on the microphone to speak, as I normally do. A pop-up message asked if I wanted to "Enable Dictation" which I found weird, since it's always been enabled and I don't ever remember an update disabling it.

However, now after I dictate and left go of the microphone, I hear a click, as if it's a live mic. Anyone else experiencing the above?

 

[C DM]

Dictate now has a separate option (separate from Siri) as of iOS 8.1 so the pop-up you saw was likely in reference to that, to notify you of it and confirm I guess.

Not sure about the "click" noise.

 

[T-Will]

I think that's just the noise made when the NSA has tapped into your iPhone's microphone.

 

[Dmaynard83]

So basically we now have offline dictation?

 

[lookatchu]

Dictate now has a separate option (separate from Siri) as of iOS 8.1 so the pop-up you saw was likely in reference to that, to notify you of it and confirm I guess.

Not sure about the "click" noise.

Thanks. You're immediately on top of it! As for the click, still getting it here. It's not that big of a deal, just a small chirp. It actually sounds like a mic.

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I think that's just the noise made when the NSA has tapped into your iPhone's microphone.

Lol!

 

[doublerh2o]

I loaded iOS 8.1 yesterday. Soon after when I hit the mic on the keyboard in Messages to dictate a response the "Enable Diction?" window immediately appeared. If you hit "learn more" a panel on "About Privacy" appears which is enough to scare the bejesuz out of most of us. All your voice transmissions will be sent directly to Apple and you will give them access to your contacts, health records, GPS locations and much more to supposedly anticipate better your verbal dictation. Talk about profiling! This is it to the nth degree.

That click some of you have been talking about is likely the pass through to Apple.

I enjoy the dictation feature especially for messages but if using it requires this blatant invasion of my privacy I for one will consider my longtime Apple addiction near an end. Does anyone have suggestions of how to get the old non invasive "dictation" feature to work in 8.1?

 

[Armen]

Shortly after downloading, I was composing an email and tapped on the microphone to speak, as I normally do. A pop-up message asked if I wanted to "Enable Dictation" which I found weird, since it's always been enabled and I don't ever remember an update disabling it.

However, now after I dictate and left go of the microphone, I hear a click, as if it's a live mic. Anyone else experiencing the above?

Apple added 3rd party keyboard dictation in 8.1. You're probably just seeing the same pop-up on the stock keyboard that shows up when you activate the mic through a 3rd party keyboard for the first time.

 

[nikicampos]

Apple added 3rd party keyboard dictation in 8.1. You're probably just seeing the same pop-up on the stock keyboard that shows up when you activate the mic through a 3rd party keyboard for the first time.

No they didn't, don't give false information.

What they did was they added a toggle for dictation (stock keyboard), they added this toggle because now if you use dictation Apple sends all kinds of information (voice input, contacts and location) to their servers, they are asking you permission to do this.

 

[C DM]

No they didn't, don't give false information.

What they did was they added a toggle for dictation (stock keyboard), they added this toggle because now if you use dictation Apple sends all kinds of information (voice input, contacts and location) to their servers, they are asking you permission to do this.

Didn't it send the information before as well? I thought they (finally) added it more to be able to have separate control over dictation vs. Siri (since it used to be tied to Siri basically).

 

[aDRock1154]

This actually happened to me today. I didn't hear any clicking, but I noticed the dictation wouldn't finish listening and input the words. It was odd, but it's been working fine after that.

 

[Armen]

No they didn't, don't give false information.

What they did was they added a toggle for dictation (stock keyboard), they added this toggle because now if you use dictation Apple sends all kinds of information (voice input, contacts and location) to their servers, they are asking you permission to do this.

Hmm must have read that wrong in the release notes then. thanks for the correction

 

[jwicker]

Opting out

I am new to this forum, and I just want to know if there is anyway to opt out of sending EVERYTHING to apple and still use my dictation? This seems like a very slippery slope on privacy.

Thank you in advance for any information!

 

[norryboy]

class action lawsuit

I too find it deeply disturbing that I purchased an iPhone with the understanding that it came with certain functionality and that I did not have to give up all my private information in order to use it. Dictations being one of those features I used to enjoy as a feature on a phone I purchased. Now with the software upgrade I lose a feature of that phone that I cannot get back without first giving further all my private information and that of those in my contacts list to Apple for use of functionality I paid for when initially purchasing the phone with an older software version. Effectively Apple is taking away from the functionality I previously purchased and holding it hostage unless I agree to give up my expectation of what little private information may still exist. I smell a class action lawsuit, anyone care to join me?

 

[C DM]

I too find it deeply disturbing that I purchased an iPhone with the understanding that it came with certain functionality and that I did not have to give up all my private information in order to use it. Dictations being one of those features I used to enjoy as a feature on a phone I purchased. Now with the software upgrade I lose a feature of that phone that I cannot get back without first giving further all my private information and that of those in my contacts list to Apple for use of functionality I paid for when initially purchasing the phone with an older software version. Effectively Apple is taking away from the functionality I previously purchased and holding it hostage unless I agree to give up my expectation of what little private information may still exist. I smell a class action lawsuit, anyone care to join me?

Nothing really changed about dictation as far as I can tell--it always worked server-side and works the same way in iOS 8.1 as it did in 8.0, iOS 7, or before.

 

[norryboy]

Class Action Lawsuit

Nothing really changed about dictation as far as I can tell--it always worked server-side and works the same way in iOS 8.1 as it did in 8.0, iOS 7, or before.

You may be correct and functionally it may be the same as the Dictation functionality prior to the latest software update. But I am not questioning the operation of Dictation. I can't speak to whether or not it changed nor am I concerned about the user interface of this function. I did not accept the new terms of use for this function that I previously had use of without Apple's new terms of use that significantly invade your privacy in order to enable continued use of this Dictation feature.

Did you read the terms of use before accepting them? Many people likely haphazardly accepted the terms in order to gain access to the Dictation functionality. Perhaps you are ok with these new terms, others are not. I paid for a phone with Dictation functionally and now I'm losing this functionality because Apple changed the terms and I have to suffer without this function because I don't agree with their new terms. The functionality is no longer available if you choose to not divulge the vast amount of metadata on your phone about you and your contacts.

If they're taking away functionality we paid for, where is our refund?

 

[C DM]

You may be correct and functionally it may be the same as the Dictation functionality prior to the latest software update. But I am not questioning the operation of Dictation. I can't speak to whether or not it changed nor am I concerned about the user interface of this function. I did not accept the new terms of use for this function that I previously had use of without Apple's new terms of use that significantly invade your privacy in order to enable continued use of this Dictation feature.

Did you read the terms of use before accepting them? Many people likely haphazardly accepted the terms in order to gain access to the Dictation functionality. Perhaps you are ok with these new terms, others are not. I paid for a phone with Dictation functionally and now I'm losing this functionality because Apple changed the terms and I have to suffer without this function because I don't agree with their new terms. The functionality is no longer available if you choose to not divulge the vast amount of metadata on your phone about you and your contacts.

If they're taking away functionality we paid for, where is our refund?

Again, I don't believe there are really any new terms. They are the same as they were before. It's just that dictation was tied to Siri before and had the same terms as Siri had, and now they provided a separate control to enable/disable dictation without it affecting Siri and vice versa, but the terms remain as they were before when Siri and dictation were tied together.

So, again, as far as I can tell, the same terms and functionality that applied before apply now, with the simple change being that you can enable or disable dictation and Siri independently of each other. No functionality is being taken away (in fact one was actually added).

 

[norryboy]

Nothing really changed about dictation as far as I can tell--it always worked server-side and works the same way in iOS 8.1 as it did in 8.0, iOS 7, or before.

Again, I don't believe there are really any new terms. They are the same as they were before. It's just that dictation was tied to Siri before and had the same terms as Siri had, and now they provided a separate control to enable/disable dictation without it affecting Siri and vice versa, but the terms remain as they were before when Siri and dictation were tied together.

So, again, as far as I can tell, the same terms and functionality that applied before apply now, with the simple change being that you can enable or disable dictation and Siri independently of each other. No functionality is being taken away (in fact one was actually added).

Those aren't the terms I would have ever accepted. Do you have a link to these terms as specified, for the i5? Have you compared the old terms an new terms side by side?

 

[C DM]

Those aren't the terms I would have ever accepted. Do you have a link to these terms as specified, for the i5? Have you compared the old terms an new terms side by side?

Where do you see that anything else changed for dictation aside from a separate toggle being introduced for it to separate it from Siri?

Here's what applies to both Siri and dictation: http://www.apple.com/privacy/privacy-built-in/ (a little lower on the page). It applied to them both before and applies to them now, with the only difference being that you can enable/disable each one individually instead of dictation essentially being tied to Siri before.

 

[norryboy]

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=510496&stc=1&d=1414793428

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=510497&stc=1&d=1414793428

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=510498&stc=1&d=1414793428

Here's the new terms, how are they the same as before? Show me the identical old terms.

 

[C DM]

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=510496&stc=1&d=1414793428

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=510497&stc=1&d=1414793428

https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=510498&stc=1&d=1414793428

Here's the new terms, how are they the same as before? Show me the identical old terms.

Those terms came up before when you would enable or disable Siri, which in turn would also enable or disable dictation as well, because both features were tied together and only had one control for them.

The point is that before to have dictation you had to have Siri enabled and when you enabled Siri (to have dictation) you would get those terms. Now, you can enable dictation on its own without Siri, but the same terms apply to it as before, so they come up now when you enable dictation or Siri as the controls for them have been separated (but not the terms which are still the same and apply to both/either one of them, as before).

 

[T-Will]

Ever since the 4S with Siri, Apple has sent this information to their servers. They're transparent with how they use the information. I guess you could always switch to using the privacy and consumer-focused Google Now.

 

[oconomowoc]

Poor Performance

I use dictation quite a bit, and unfortunately after my latest upgrade to 10.10.1, the dictation feature useless. It does a very poor job of performing commands - for example, when I say "comma" after a word and keep dictating, the next word after the comma starts with a capital letter and there is no space between the comma and the next word. Plus, there are some other weird things it does which requires me to spend much more time to go back and fix versus just typing everything out on my keyboard. I hope this gets fixed soon. Apple has a lot of cool features, but if they don't work properly, they are pointless.

 

[C DM]

I use dictation quite a bit, and unfortunately after my latest upgrade to 10.10.1, the dictation feature useless. It does a very poor job of performing commands - for example, when I say "comma" after a word and keep dictating, the next word after the comma starts with a capital letter and there is no space between the comma and the next word. Plus, there are some other weird things it does which requires me to spend much more time to go back and fix versus just typing everything out on my keyboard. I hope this gets fixed soon. Apple has a lot of cool features, but if they don't work properly, they are pointless.

So is that in relation to using dictation in OS X Yosemite?

 

[DeepFreeze]

unhappy about diction enable privacy violation

just on the phone to complain about the diction enable problem with the 8.1.1 upgrade and they are saying there may be a work around where you don't have to send your info and still be able to use diction with 8.1.1, but I am not sure she really knows, I am waiting on tech support now and I suggest anyone else do this that does not want to give up the last inch of privacy they have. If there is a work around that tech support gives me I will post what they say, however if there is not one I will post that there was not.

p.s. Really upset because this was not an item that was an issue when I bought this phone, that is a coward move by apple

 

[C DM]

just on the phone to complain about the diction enable problem with the 8.1.1 upgrade and they are saying there may be a work around where you don't have to send your info and still be able to use diction with 8.1.1, but I am not sure she really knows, I am waiting on tech support now and I suggest anyone else do this that does not want to give up the last inch of privacy they have. If there is a work around that tech support gives me I will post what they say, however if there is not one I will post that there was not.

p.s. Really upset because this was not an item that was an issue when I bought this phone, that is a coward move by apple

This always worked the same way--Siri and dictation data was processed through Apple servers. It was like this before 8.0 and 8.1 and still is after.