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Is my dictation faulty?

M

Mrg02d

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 27, 2012
1,102
2
Hey guys,
I keep reading all these great things about dictation. On my iPad, dictation is awful. It never seems to understand me and it always has these idiot interpretations of what I said. Most of the time, it's interpretation isnt even intelligible. A bunch of gibberish is usually what comes out.

Could this be a problem with the iPad or a problem with me? Who else here has lousy dictation?

Matt
 
If you have any background sound on, like music tv etc. I find it produces gibberish. Turn everything off, and it's great. Not so good for me as I almost always have something playing in the background.

With a little practice, it works well, but as stated, no background sound.
 
Do you have an accent and do you enunciate? You need to be clear and in an environment which isn't too noisy.

If you want, purchase a Jawbone headset because it helps with dictation and Siri.
 
LOL!! Mine is a load of crap too.

I speak clearly, no over enunciation, no accent and I still spend more time correcting it's mess ups than had I typed it myself.

It gets the very basic wording such as : such , will, can, has but anything with 3 or more syllables is basically hopeless. It is not gibberish, but it isn't what I dictated either.....

:rolleyes:

What might make it more effective is if it had a training program like my bluetooth voice from iPhone to car, it has you dictate several sentences etc to get a better understanding of your word sounds.
 
Last edited:
Hey guys,
No background noise at all. I also enunciate my words pretty well, if I do say so myself. :)

Here is an example:
Here's an example Feldberg dictations
That should have been : here is an example of how bad dictation is

The thing doesn't work like a dozen commercials

That should have been: definitely doesn't work like it does in the commercials.

Good gosh...

Dictation makes me feel like MY FAIR LADY...

Matt
 
Mrg02d said:
Hey guys,
No background noise at all. I also enunciate my words pretty well, if I do say so myself. :)

Here is an example:
Here's an example Feldberg dictations
That should have been : here is an example of how bad dictation is

The thing doesn't work like a dozen commercials

That should have been: definitely doesn't work like it does in the commercials.

Good gosh...

Matt
Click to expand...

LOL!! No shizz eh? From how good everyone says Siri is, one would have expected the same understanding and responsiveness in a dictation driven voice comm. Mind you, maybe Siri just gists vs having to hear, and copy the words on a screen??
 
Well to share my two cents the dictation feature works almost perfectly.

I am constantly surprised at how flawlessly it transcribes what I'm saying into an email.

The most difficult thing about using it is that it forces you to "think" about your writing in a way that feels awkward – But I suspected something I will get used to.

In fact, the dictation feature works so well, that for me, that really solves one of the major problems of the iPad which is the on-screen keyboard. And don't get me wrong, I LIKE the on screen keyboard – but for riding out a few paragraphs it can get old.

The dictation feature is so easy and so convenient I really don't think twice about responding to an email or doing things like posting this reply – something I would've never done if I was relying upon the on-screen keyboard.

So, for those struggling with having the dictation feature work successfully, I will share that I dictated this entire message as is exactly above – no errors at all except for the first instance of the word feature in the first sentence and the word errors in this sentence. It took four or five "sessions "of dictation where I had to tap the dictation button speak a few sentences and then tap it again.

Good luck getting it working – maybe with future updates the dictation feature will accommodate better for different accents.
 
Mrg02d said:
Hey guys,
No background noise at all. I also enunciate my words pretty well, if I do say so myself. :)

Here is an example:
Here's an example Feldberg dictations
That should have been : here is an example of how bad dictation is

The thing doesn't work like a dozen commercials

That should have been: definitely doesn't work like it does in the commercials.

Good gosh...

Dictation makes me feel like MY FAIR LADY...

Matt
Click to expand...

Works for me just fine just now. Best way to think about dictation is like that movie "The King's Speech". You'll need to dictate clearly and fluently like you know the language. You also should be not too close to the mic. If you want, check if anything is stuck in the mic part on the top of the iPad. Rest the iPad on a table so the distance between you and the mic is the same every single time. When you enunciate your words, the consonants must be audible so if you talk like you're from Boston, it's going to be a little rough. Also if you have too much southern drawl, dictation will assume the sentence you are trying to dictate.
 
cinca said:
Well to share my two cents the dictation feature works almost perfectly.

I am constantly surprised at how flawlessly it transcribes what I'm saying into an email.

The most difficult thing about using it is that it forces you to "think" about your writing in a way that feels awkward – But I suspected something I will get used to.

In fact, the dictation feature works so well, that for me, that really solves one of the major problems of the iPad which is the on-screen keyboard. And don't get me wrong, I LIKE the on screen keyboard – but for riding out a few paragraphs it can get old.

The dictation feature is so easy and so convenient I really don't think twice about responding to an email or doing things like posting this reply – something I would've never done if I was relying upon the on-screen keyboard.

So, for those struggling with having the dictation feature work successfully, I will share that I dictated this entire message as is exactly above – no errors at all except for the first instance of the word feature in the first sentence and the word errors in this sentence. It took four or five "sessions "of dictation where I had to tap the dictation button speak a few sentences and then tap it again.

Good luck getting it working – maybe with future updates the dictation feature will accommodate better for different accents.
Click to expand...

Lucky you!

I hate dictation. I have no accent and enunciate my words ( my grandma was a speech therapist).

I hope it isn't my iPad. I hope it's the network crapping on me instead...

Matt

----------
ano0oj said:
IMPERFECT iPAD?!?!?!




RETURN.

lol
Click to expand...

– Now I really don't worry terminus

Woops, that should have said: oh gosh no, I really don't want to return this!

I wish I knew someone else with an iPad 3 to test...
 
It is still a beta-ish product Be sure to send feedback to Apple. Mention some phrases that dont work. Maybe post a video so their engineers can see/hear the issues...
 
Try using iRig to record your voice and play it back. If it sounds crackly or muffled, there could be a problem with the mic.

I'm not saying that you don't dictate well, I'm just saying that there could be multiple reasons why the dictation could be messed up. To add insult to injury, Apple's Siri voice recognition engine is done via internet connection so if you're losing packets while it's processing voice dictation, that could also cause problems. I still prefer to use Dragon Dictation since it's all built-in.
 
Mrg02d said:
Hey guys,
No background noise at all. I also enunciate my words pretty well, if I do say so myself. :)

Here is an example:
Here's an example Feldberg dictations
That should have been : here is an example of how bad dictation is

The thing doesn't work like a dozen commercials

That should have been: definitely doesn't work like it does in the commercials.

Good gosh...

Dictation makes me feel like MY FAIR LADY...

Matt
Click to expand...
Haha, well I guess it is possible? Wouldn't it be a microphone problem? try recording yourself and playing it back and see if distorted
 
I believe the same problem causing it to malfunction is the same problem that cuases Siri to screw up and get answers to questions incorrect.

Apples servers are pack loaded full, and for some stupid reason they insist on making your dictation travel to their server become decoded and back to your device, rather than just having it run natively.

Depending in where you live (how close to the server and amount of people using it) will determine how accurate it is. Try using dicattion at 2am and see if it screws up.
 
Try the free Dragon Dictation app which works much better I find. It is not system wide, but it works better and it doesn't have a stupid 15 second or so recording limit. If that works better than Apple's default app, blame the app and not the iPad. I tried reading xbox commands to my iPad and it transcribed "music games videos apps home" as "music games videos a$$ hole" :(
 
Mrg02d said:
Hey guys,
I keep reading all these great things about dictation. On my iPad, dictation is awful. It never seems to understand me and it always has these idiot interpretations of what I said. Most of the time, it's interpretation isnt even intelligible. A bunch of gibberish is usually what comes out.

Could this be a problem with the iPad or a problem with me? Who else here has lousy dictation?

Matt
Click to expand...

If I speak clearly it has a 90% accuracy rate, but I does mess up sometimes. I'm sure it's just an environment/speech input issue. All dictation really is is software, if your mic is working well, than its all good :)
 
SteveJobs2.0 said:
Try the free Dragon Dictation app which works much better I find. It is not system wide, but it works better and it doesn't have a stupid 15 second or so recording limit. If that works better than Apple's default app, blame the app and not the iPad. I tried reading xbox commands to my iPad and it transcribed "music games videos apps home" as "music games videos a$$ hole" :(
Click to expand...

Lol, that's what dictation is making me feel like...I'll try again later and see if it's server problems.

Matt
 
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