Why is Apple speech recognition so lousy and getting worse?

By Scott F, 7 June, 2022

Forum
Accessibility Advocacy

We Hi friends. I wanted to share the following feedback that I sent to Apple accessibility . I would welcome your perspectives on the matter and also any suggestions as to how to get this matter to the right people. Thank you!

Text of the email follows…

Hello. I am a long time Apple user who has a visual impairment and also a repetitive stress injury. In consequence, I use both VoiceOver and voice control on my iPhone and MacBook Pro.

My strong complaint as with the speech recognition accuracy for dictating text with voice control. Issuing commands to the iPhone through voice control works quite well. But open speech dictation is terrible and only seems to have gotten worse over the past few years (by my personal subjective opinion and also according to a number of other people I have spoken with). This leads to a profound limitation in how useful my iPhone is for me and for anyone else who wants to talk into their phone and have it talk back to them. Whenever I dictate an email like this or a text message, I have to prove and edit it to make sure it is readable. I have to fix many mistakes. I don't even bother trying to dictate longer documents.

As a general matter, I find the iPhone much simpler to use than a desktop computer as a screen reader user. But the poor accuracy on the iPhone complicates matters. Recently I purchased dragon NaturallySpeaking for PC and I use this for dictating longer documents. The accuracy is amazing. But I would still prefer to do things like emails and texts on the iPhone because it is so much simpler.

I am quite sure that I am not the only person with or without a disability who would like to be able to type reasonably accurately by voice on the iPhone, not to mention a Mac. Apple has done such a fabulous job on so many accessibility fronts, so why is it that speech recognition is so lame? I would strongly encourage Apple to put some serious work into this area, and as much as it would increase accessibility and productivity for many people.

Thank you for your consideration.

Metta (with friendliness),
Scott Feldman, PhD

Options

Comments

By Unregistered User (not verified) on Tuesday, June 7, 2022 - 18:45

I've noticed that it's gotten particularly bad within the past few months: extra words that I didn't say, wrong phonemes where I would absolutely not expect speech recognition to trip up, and other annoyances that make me want to yeet my phone out a window. There's the random "are" and "oh" that were inexplicably added and once it somehow confused an "ee" sound with an "oo". It's baffling. No, iOS, I didn't use a fricative in that word. I very clearly used a plosive. It's a p, not an f... you get the point.

Anyway, I've been using BSI more and more as of late to lower my blood pressure. I think gboard is available as well, and Google's voice recognition is significantly better, so that's an option too.

By Crazyappuser on Tuesday, June 7, 2022 - 19:30

I have also been an Apple user and also blind since day one, I really wish that Apple would improve on dictate. Echoing your last comment Apple have gone to great lengths to make everything accessible for everyone and they have done us proud over the years, but this dictate feature on the iPhone is driving me mad because I’m currently having to correct any errors that the dictate feature makes, which makes texting really long and laborious. Therefore, I can empathise what you have stated, stay safe X

By Earle on Tuesday, June 7, 2022 - 19:45

I know that we all have different opinions when it comes to Siri and dictation. I personally do not experience many problems with dictation. It isn’t perfect. but it isn’t very often that I have to make corrections. iOS has been getting better and better for me as far as dictation is concerned. I realize that this isn’t the case for everyone, but I just wanted to point out that it does work for some of us for the most part. I think that dictation will get even better with iOS 16. At least that is my hope. I’m going to read this comment back before I post it. I’m just letting you know that I did not edit it in any way. So if there are any mistakes you will see them in the comment. I’m posting this as is and I have made no corrections. I have dictated this comment completely with my voice, and have not written anything using the keyboard or any other method. I’m using iOS 16 at the moment to dictate this, but even in iOS 15 I still had very good results using dictation

By Earle on Tuesday, June 7, 2022 - 19:49

I saw one mistake in my previous comment. Dictation did not put a period at the very end. I didn’t correct it because I said that I was not going to make any corrections. I just wanted to point it out to you.

By Siobhan on Tuesday, June 7, 2022 - 20:12

Sent a text last night, saying my math sucks. well, you can guess what it said. good thing it was to my boyfriend and not anyone else. I find if you pause as you speak a little, speak slowly, I speak wicked fast, it seems to be easier. I still love my inappropriate things. I mean who doesn't and should read, before sending? I'm terrible but I am getting better at it. I don't want to tell something a Grammy winning celeb that looks like a four year old wrote it. :)

By Borostar on Wednesday, June 8, 2022 - 11:03

Dictation works well 90% of the time for me and it wasn't enough for me to continue using it! I switched to Braille screen input which can be added to the rotor and this has been a game changer for me. I can say that I can type as fast as any other sighted person. I now send longer replies to messages and text much more frequently thanks to this keyboard. It took me a while to get the hang of it but it was worth it in the end. Even my iPad is getting a fair bit of usage as I use to hate using the large onscreen keyboard. I really urge people to give this keyboard a shot and you will be surprised by how quickly you can actually type on your devices. I'm afraid, dictation is a thing of the past for me.

By Stoo on Wednesday, June 8, 2022 - 12:42

As someone that uses dictation many times a day on their iPhone, I too have noticed the decline in accuracy.

I believe that this started after Apple changed the way IOS processes the voice dictation.

Previously it used to send your voice to the cloud and it was processed there before the text being sent back to your phone.

Now, in a bid to increase speed with Siri and voice dictation when out of signal, all the processing is done on the phone itself, what they call "on device processing".

I'm guessing the analytics and power of the servers used in the cloud were more powerful than the on pohone processing, which is why it's now more prone to errors.

I'd personally like Apple to introduce an option where we can decide where our voice recordings are processed.
So you'd have the on phone option for reliability and the in the cloud option for accuracy.

By roman on Wednesday, June 8, 2022 - 14:03

Hello everyone hope everybody is doing well on this fantastic day! as per my experience, The dictation works for me most of the time; however, It types sometimes the words which I have not spoken. For the example the verb are, instead of the first person I. besides that, I am Okay.

By Ry Shar on Saturday, August 6, 2022 - 19:15

Observations…

My Apple Watch dictates literally perfectly. It is accurate even if I am speaking at an incredibly fast speed.

My MacBook Pro is very accurate with dictation.

My iPhone Pro 12 max sucks so badly with dictation that I want to throw it out the window anytime I try to dictate anything. I’ve tried every setting and nothing changes. It’s still so bad I want to throw it out the window no matter what.

I just got some AirPod pros, and when I use them to dictate on the iPhone Pro 12 max, the dictation is very good.

So, my conclusion is, even though the microphones on the iPhone Pro 12 max sound fine when recorded voice is listen to, there is something wrong with them regarding dictation. The phone is supposed to have incredibly good microphones but there is something wrong with the way the microphones and dictation work together.

I’ve looked on Apple forums and everybody complains about the dictation and Apple Support has become more and more useless in the past five years as they become a larger company. I asked them about the problem and they have a hard time with basic things. Just wondering if most people complaining about the dictation are using the phones and for some reason all of them have the same issue. Microphones/iOS equals crap dictation.

Anyway, just thought I would throw my best guess in the ring. here’s hoping that iOS 16 changes things. Seems like I read that they were doing something with the speech and dictation engine in the upcoming release.

By Steve on Sunday, August 14, 2022 - 18:13

I thought it was just me so I’m glad people agree. I think my point is that it’s getting worse. It was good, but now it is not so good. I thought over time it would improve as most technologies too. I’ve been very disappointed.

By Holger Fiallo on Sunday, August 14, 2022 - 21:02

Same. I use dictation in mmy iPad with 16 and is great. Hope when iOS 16 comes and I install it in 12 pro it be good.

By Johann on Friday, February 17, 2023 - 18:09

I can only agree with your statement. I myself am also a long time user of loads of Apple devices. I own a MacBook Pro and two different iPads on top of all the iPhones I've had in the past. I suffer from muscular dystrophy and that is why I desperately need speech recognition too as I cannot use my hands to type on a keyboard anymore. I've got a PhD in Sociology and I am a researcher at CNRS French Research Center. As you could imagine writing is the main activity of my work, and I have been having a really hard time doing so for years now.
Despite hundreds of hours of research, I still haven't found the solution to write in all the various contexts I have to do it. Unlike you, my experience with Dragon NaturallySpeaking has been so-so. So, in the end, I ended up finding a solution with the proper mic, with dragon naturally speaking, installed with parallel desktop on my Mac. It barely works when I dictate in my quiet room, but accuracy drastically drops whenever I try to dictate in a more noisy environment.
Last thing I discovered is the speech recognition tool OpenAI produced that uses artificial intelligence and hundreds of thousands of hours to build a very powerful algorithm. You might have heard of it, it's called Whisper. And the results are just amazing. That is completely game and life-changing. I can not only write in French again, but also in English or Spanish, which I speak fluently, but would never try to make Dragon understand, as it has already having a hard time understanding me in my mother tongue already.
I can't understand either why Apple still hasn't produced its own powerful tool that could help on a daily basis so many users with or without disability. I've read somewhere that Next OS would take direct advantage on artificial intelligence (I guess that is a matter of fashion). So maybe speech recognition will benefit it the same way. I am crossing fingers for you too my friend.
Have a look at the app called MacWhisperer. It's a little tool. Basic version is free. And you only have to pay 10 bucks to get the Pro version, which gives you a level of accuracy I had never seen before. Do try, you will be amazed, I swear. Don't hesitate to give me feedback, and to tell me if ever you received answers from folks at Apple after your notes.
All the best. Cheers.

By Bruce Harrell on Saturday, February 18, 2023 - 19:34

Want to start over?
Go to Settings > Siri & Search, turn off Listen for “Hey Siri,” then turn on Listen for “Hey Siri” again. SIRI will learn. Start slowly. Speak slowly. Only very gradually speak faster, and by gradually, I mean over weeks or months.
To change Siri accessibility settings, see Use accessibility features with Siri on iPhone.
If Siri doesn’t work as expected on your iPhone, see the Apple Support article If “Hey Siri” isn’t working on your iPhone or iPad.

By Dennis Long on Sunday, February 19, 2023 - 07:14

Siri has went to crap Google assistant beats it hands down. Siri is no longer reliable

By Bruce Harrell on Sunday, February 19, 2023 - 17:48

I followed the steps I outlined above. No more than a minor problem here and there. Siri works fine on my iPhone 10S.

By ScandiDragon on Saturday, February 25, 2023 - 10:17

Hi! I find the dictation really, really bad. I cannot get it to distinguish between I and eye or me and May or my, and it often just duplicates entire sentences without warning. I am partially sighted so it would be great to be able to dictate messages/notes/emails without wanting to smash my phone.
I also don’t really understand why the voice control feature works the way it does- it provides hints if you don’t get the command exactly how they expect, which would be fantastic except that they are only written. I haven’t been able to find a way to get the hints to be said out loud (I have tried the screen reader/Siri/settings etc). Any tips super welcome.

By Siobhan on Saturday, February 25, 2023 - 13:23

I haven't had coffee, so this might not even be the right answer so I'm sorry in advance. If you turned on hints, something i personally don't like and turn off with every phone, would that read the written siri commands? Not sure how i think this would help but pre-coffee. :) Have a good one.

By jim pickens on Thursday, March 2, 2023 - 08:04

I’ve been experiencing the opposite, speech recognition seems to be working phenomenally for me, I don’t know if it’s because I have a weird accent I’ve adapted over the years for speech recognition, but it seems to be working great. I usually always pronounced the tea as a tea, tho sticking with a normal American accent for the rest of the letters. with the release of iOS 16: speech recognition has
improved
for me.

By Bruce Harrell on Thursday, March 2, 2023 - 18:10

Meow Meow put their finger on it -- consistent, well enunciated dictation enables SIRi to learn and widen accurately interpreted speech. I dictated for many years as an attorney. Later, when SIRI CAME ALONG, I GENERALLY had an easy time after SIRI had a chance to learn my speech. I still have an easy time, provided I speak clearly, except for the occasional glitch, like SIRI hearing "group" but writing "grope". And, believe it or not, I have a slight speech impediment, too! smile

By Michael T on Tuesday, March 14, 2023 - 10:51

I had to stop and create a account so I can post of my reply. The dictation feature on this phone is terrible hi in like many others I’ve read on here where I want to throw this phone up against the wall or out the window or run it over with a car or something I don’t care if I paid $1200 for this phone or not it’s so aggravating I mean so aggravating you you don’t even want to use the dictation feature you would rather just tap it because you have to go back and correct every single thing about this thing this is the worst the worst dictation feature of ever seen on any iPhone or any phone at all. I can use Google Gboard on here but whenever the dictation comes up it switches you to another page .
I can use Google Gboard on here but whenever the dictation comes up it switches you to another page were you not seeing with your writing and it’s annoying it does not page please I wish Apple would do something about it.

I used Apple dictation to write this and I had to work really hard and go back in correct about a third of what I wrote

By Brooke on Tuesday, March 14, 2023 - 12:45

I very rarely use dictation. I’m using it now, just to see how it works. I am a fast talker, but when I’m dictating, I speak slowly and clearly. The few times I do use dictation, I haven’t noticed any problems. It seems to understand me and pick up what I say without any issues. Let’s see how this went. I only noticed one issue, where I said I’m and it posted I am.

By Holy Diver on Tuesday, March 14, 2023 - 15:24

This was one of the reasons I moved to android several years back and google does seem to be the king of this particular hill, especially on Pixel phones. I mostly use android’s braille screen input these days, I think apple and android are basically at parody there, but if dictation is your main way of typing iPhones have not been the best solution for many years now. I’m not recommending a switch necessarily, you’d lose all that fantastic integration with your MAC, but you’d gain better integration with windows and have much more accurate dictation.
Edit: I was writing in braille and made a very dictation like mistake, saying use instead of lose haha. It's fixed now.

By Igna Triay on Tuesday, March 14, 2023 - 17:10

@Holy Diver, I've never used android, so i'm curious, is there any difference between braille screen input on ios and android devices, or is it the same on both?
Regarding dictation, I don't use it myself as I prefer to type, but its not that good on ios yeah, although I think it parcially depends on factors, I.e, where you are when dictating, if there's background noise etc, and how clearly and from what distance you speak from the microphone when doing so, but over all, apple's dictation isn't that good. Not that it's bad, per say, but it could improve a lot for sure.

By Amir Soleimani on Tuesday, March 14, 2023 - 19:15

Folks, to say that I oftentimes rely on the dictation feature on iOS is an understatement, and it never disappoints. Yeah - there are the occasional mistakes and corrections, but I've seen them on Android phones - namely flagship Galaxy ones. There's, of course, always room for improvement, but as a non-native English speaker IMO Apple's dictation facility is quite impressive. I've even utilize Gboard on my iPhone, but the results are quite similar, so Gboard is mostly used for voice-typing in Persian - something which only Google supports albeit via an Internet connection only. A phone like Google Pixel might do better in this field, but iPhones are superior when it comes to battery life, performance, speakers, etc., so I don't want to sacrifice all of these for a potential - and a theoretically fractional - dictation improvement.

By Holy Diver on Tuesday, March 14, 2023 - 21:37

They're about the same now really. In my very subjective experience iOS gives a little more flexibility for, say, selecting text in an edit field but android is more stable, focus doesn't jump around as much or accidentally type the wrong letter as often. Of course that might be down to the quality of hardware I'm using, much newer android flagship vs older iPhone 8, so take that with some salt. I've had a few friends who use both on newer hardware say android's is more stable now, though with less features. I think either will do most everyone fine honestly.

By Lawrence on Saturday, June 3, 2023 - 20:49

I also don't like using Apples dictation software. It seems to make a lot more mistakes than other dictation software I have used. Although I do agree that Windows 8 dictation software used to be even worse than Apple dictation is now, Apple dictation is still not good. I find myself having to constantly stop every few sentences to correct mistakes.

However, I recently installed Microsoft Swift Key Keyboard. It's a keyboard that claims to have the power of generating responses via artificial intelligence. The artificial intelligence parts of the keyboard don't appear to be accessible; however, this keyboard also has the functionality of voice dictation. Microsoft calls this feature voice typing. I think it uses the same technology as Microsoft Word does.

Back in the day when I was a student at college, I would use Microsoft Word to dictate my responses to essays etc. Even back in those days, Apple Dictation would have a hard time understanding me, which means I would have to correct mistakes constantly. This was a big frustration because it would take me longer to edit than it would to speak and write something down. Microsoft Dictation made it a lot easier, especially with Microsoft Word, but unfortunately I had to access Dictation through a Microsoft 365 subscription. But now I'm glad that Microsoft has integrated this into the iOS version of Swift Key Keyboard. I can easily use Microsoft's dictation functionality to type in text even while in other text fields that are not in Microsoft's own software. Another cool feature that I like about this dictation software is that I don't have to speak punctuation marks. The software simply knows when to insert punctuation Marks.Overall, the dictation experience has drastically improved with Microsoft Swift Key Keyboard.

By Michael on Sunday, June 4, 2023 - 00:26

This is extremely helpful and possibly a lifesaver for those who need to rely on dictation due to a disability.

By Ash Rein on Sunday, June 4, 2023 - 15:53

Dictation isn't perfect. It generally runs about 94% accurate. Unfortunately, the remaining 6% is very very very important. It determines tone, context.

One thing to always do it to clean microphones regularly. These are open ports. Debris can often get in there. A dry cloth or shirt can usually get most to all of the debris out. It takes 2 minutes and can improve dictation by a lot.

By Turismo_Foe on Saturday, March 29, 2025 - 11:23

In my opinion, the speech recognition of my iPhone is much worse now than my iPhone 6 from years ago... It is so bad that it almost feels like there is some mischievous entity, or maybe possibly the AI/algorithm itself that is playing games constantly as I use speech to text more often than most because it is hard for me to type.. the phone struggles with words you would never imagine a smart phone to struggle with? One syllable words!! Words that have the same sound but different spelling, and now you would think the AI in the phone would analyze the context of the other words in what you are writing as a means to predict the correct spelling of a word, but more often than not it goes the exact opposite direction on this?!!! Perfect example is if I said "oh man that is really awesome. I love that one too" more often than not it would write something that says: "oh man that is really awesome, I love that won two" and this is just one of the smaller more minor discrepancies with getting the phone to not make these dumb mistakes... It will do much worse than one of the most aggravating things that it does every single day and every single message is it will write exactly what I said, and then all of a sudden, change it to something that I didn't say?!?! it will add in words that I never even spoke! And it were constantly try to inject popular words and phrases that are often used so I know the phone is analyzing the context and if this is the case, how on earth is it so inaccurate?!! It's literally analyzing the context and then still spelling things that even a kindergartener(at least from my time) would not make the mistake of?!!! It's absolutely ridiculous! And the one that really aggravates me the most is when it'll write what I say and I'm looking at it to confirm that it wrote it correctly and then right as I'm hitting the "post" button all of a sudden it'll AutoCorrect to something that is incorrect, meaning that 90% of the time when you use this feature of the phone it is making mistakes and it almost seems like it's doing it on purpose because that would create more engagement, right???
RIGHT????

I swear this is what it is-

By Brian on Saturday, March 29, 2025 - 12:28

Would disabling AutoCorrect and/or auto punctuation have any impact here? Just curious.

By Ash Rein on Saturday, March 29, 2025 - 13:21

It’s just what Apple uses right now. The reason why you’re seeing such a huge difference in dictation success on other devices is that they’re using AI. Apple is still using its very old old old system. That’s going to change. But it’s gonna take a year or two at least. Turning things off and turning them on and all the other superstitious stuff people are doing is anecdotal at best. It won’t make a difference for you. Just stay the course. You’re gonna see a major difference when AI really comes to iPhones and iPads and Max. For now, you’re just gonna have to deal with the quality you get. There’s no worthwhile trick here.

Right now,it might be accurate to let’s say 93%. The AI models that android and other systems are using are up to 97% or 98%. That might not seem like much, but they understand context and even if they don’t hear the word you said, they understand that a specific word might fit better based on the rest of the words you’re saying.

Right now, Apple’s dictation system is not doing anything other than taking what it hears and inputting it. That’s why you might get saying instead of seeing. That’s why you might get liar instead of LiDAR. It’s why you might get or instead of are. It doesn’t understand context yet. Apple promotes it as being able to do such, but it doesn’t work that way. Again, give it a year or two. Change is coming. And it will be welcome. It’s just not here yet. Please don’t fall for these “tricks. “They don’t work.

By Tara on Saturday, March 29, 2025 - 22:17

When I got my first iPhone in 2013, the dictation worked great. But round about 2015 or so, it started going down hill drastically. It got to the point that it was easier not to dictate a message than to dictate one. There were so many mistakes it just wasn't worth it. But last year, I decided to try dictation again, and it's a lot better than it was. I can dictate long messages, yes I still have to correct minor things, but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be. I don't know when this became a thing but, if you pause whilst dictating, the phone inserts punctuation for you.

By Holger Fiallo on Sunday, March 30, 2025 - 00:43

Apple stop working on the siri for siri 2.0 which will not come for a long time. I think my Cubs have a better chance of winning the world series 3 times.

By Brian on Sunday, March 30, 2025 - 00:51

Hi Tara,

If this helps, you can (theoretically) disable the auto punctuation, by going to settings, general, keyboard, and disabling auto punctuation. It helps with dictation by not adding punctuation when you pause.

By Tara on Sunday, March 30, 2025 - 01:21

Hi Brian,
I actually don't mind it adding punctuation when I pause. It saves me having to dictate it. But thanks for the tip anyway.

By Griff0067 on Thursday, August 21, 2025 - 08:19

I used to dictate notes and documents, emails, texts, messages and WhatsApp almost flawlessly.
Now I wouldn’t trust iPhone to be accurate.
It doesn’t even recognise my voice when asking for a search.
Quality and accuracy has declined massively. When I change my phone I will give serious consideration to moving away from Apple.

By Winter Roses on Thursday, August 21, 2025 - 13:02

Dictation has gotten so bad over the last couple of years. I remember back when I had my iPhone 5c and later my iPhone 7 Plus, dictation worked well. If I’m remembering correctly, it started getting worse around iOS 7 or iOS 8, but before that it was almost flawless—like 90 to 95% accuracy on everything I said. I could insert punctuation marks by speaking them, and it wouldn't mistake the word for the punctuation, instead of putting the symbol in the text. That’s not the case anymore, which is disappointing. Even with the fastest typing speed I can manage on the iPhone, it’s tough. I’ve never been able to get the hang of direct touch or touch typing—whichever one it is where you tap the key and it enters right away. It’s hard for me to switch between letters and numbers on the keyboard. Back when I used my Nokia E63 with Mobile Speak, it was so much easier because I had physical buttons. The phone looked like a BlackBerry, and since BlackBerries were popular where I live, persons always commented on it. Like, whoa, cool, a blind girl with a blackberry. Haha, real cute. I could type fast on that device because I could actually feel the buttons.

Once I switched to the iPhone, dictation became my main way of writing longer messages since typing on the touchscreen never felt as natural. I could simply dictate and send, especially when I wasn’t in crowded places where I’d feel awkward talking to my phone. But now, dictation is beyond unreliable that if I want to write a long text, I have to break it into smaller chunks, and honestly, the older I get, the less time and energy I have to sit there pounding on a touchscreen.

I know I could use a Bluetooth keyboard, but that means carrying another device around with me, and I’m not doing any serious professional typing to justify it. For personal use, it feels unnecessary. And, yes, even with all my proficiency in braille, I have literally never gotten the hang of braille screen input. In my head, I'm like, why can't you understand this? Come on, you understand the device, you know braille, but yeah, it's not clicking for some reason. OK, I obviously need my two hands for this to work effectively, but I don't always have a flat and stable surface to press on. I don’t know if Apple changed how they process dictation —maybe it used to be managed directly on the device and now it’s cloud-based, or maybe the reverse—but whatever they did, dictation has definitely gone downhill.
At the same time, I don’t like sending voice messages because I hate the sound of my own voice. So, here I am, often depending on ChatGPT for long messages. It’s kind of embarrassing, yeah, but also kind of sad, because I used to be able to do this all on my own.
When I use ChatGPT, I usually dictate in this stream-of-consciousness manner. I’m not too worried about punctuation, grammar, or repetition—it’s more about speed than polish. And to its credit, ChatGPT usually gets the message out the way I want it. That’s a task Gemini and Claude don’t quite manage. No matter how much I tell them “please write up this message for me,” they end up twisting my words, breaking up the flow, or slipping in phrasing that doesn’t make sense. Claude, to be fair, often sounds more human in tone, maybe less robotic, but it misses the context way more than ChatGPT does. Gemini too.
I don’t care what others think of me online—I don’t know them, and my only goal is to get the message across quickly and be done with it. This isn’t school, or a graded assignment. It’s a little awkward knowing they can probably tell when I’ve used GPT. I can't deal with the stilted formulaic writing with the weird punctuation marks, so, either way, it's easier for me to type, or dictate my texts, and then edit. If I make a mistake in my message, that's completely on me, and not on ChatGPT. Yeah, I could look into another dictation software, but I can't be bothered at this point. If you're typing shorter messages on the iPhone keyboard, it's not a big deal, but if you often have a lot to say, then I would imagine it's probably easier to send a voice message, depending on who you're talking to. Plus, for me, I like to have a written record of conversations. It's easier to make reference to, and I don't want to spend 10 minutes listening to a voice message for info that could've been said in two minutes or less.

By onetrickpony on Thursday, August 21, 2025 - 16:13

In the near future AI will more or less overtake the operating system. Then speech recognition becomes a make or break for Apple and the same applies to AI in general. So probably, or rather hopefully, they will get it done, otherwise Apple might experience the Blackberry fate.

By Holger Fiallo on Thursday, August 21, 2025 - 16:30

Well Apple suppose to release a better Siri. Whether the issue will be addressed is a different story. Apple said the same about AI and nothing.

By Bruce Harrell on Thursday, August 21, 2025 - 16:39

From what I've read, and from what I've experienced, accurate dictation on the iPhone isn't an on or off decision. It's more a "begin learning" or "forget what you've learned" choice. When you first enable dictation after setting up your new phone, it begins learning as it hears and interprets your dictation. Every time you edit what it's transcribed, it learns. Over time, accuracy improves. So long as you do not erase what it has learned, accuracy continues to improve.

If dictation used to be good but now you are having problems, my guess is that you deleted what your phone learned without knowing.

As an aside, I should mention that dictation transcription on your phone probably doesn't occur locally on your phone. Thinking they're doing something to protect their privacy, people erase their dictation history, which brings them back to square one for your phone learning to correctly transcribe what you dictate.

Things to try: to help the learning process, try dictating in a quiet environment, try careful enunciation, try speaking slowly, and frequently roll your eyes (joke).

Last, I don't think what Apple offers is actually AI. Google comes a lot closer, from what I've read.

Smile. Good luck!

Bruce

By Chris Hill on Thursday, August 21, 2025 - 18:14

Maybe it used to learn, but I don't think it is learning anymore, either that or it is learning from a population instead of you as an individual user. The only way I can make it work reliably is to deliberately leave spaces between words, but watch out or you'll get commas

By Jokyboy129 on Thursday, August 21, 2025 - 19:46

For me all this started with iOS 16. Dictation improved so much in iOS 11 or 12, and then got really bad in iOS 16, and it hasn't changed since then. That is at least for german.

By AppleFan01 on Thursday, August 21, 2025 - 21:54

Dictated output: I have noticed this as well on my iPhone about to do correction after dictating to 100% of the time
Original statement: I've noticed it on my iPhone as well. Most of the time I would have to do corrections to the statement I've dictated.
As for my Mac I don't use dictation as I have an external keyboard connected to it 100% of the time.
As you can see the dictated version missed all the crucial words and does not dictate properly. Dictation is only good for dictating one or two wards at a time
Most irritating!

By Tayo on Friday, August 22, 2025 - 00:27

I guess I'll be joining the crowd in saying that dictation is screwed up right now. I never had any of the older iPhone models, but I've had some low end Android Phones and one high-end Samsung. I never had the trouble with dictation that I have on my Apple devices. I'd like to know how to dictate with Chat GBT if it's possible. Right now, native dictation sucks, but since it isn't possible to pinpoint the reasons for its lack of accuracy and apparent hallucinations, not sure what sending feedback on the issue would do. My guess is that very few sighted people bother with dictation so the issues fly under the radar.

By Holy Diver on Saturday, August 23, 2025 - 01:52

At some point you have to specialize as a company. Training good speech recognition, especially on device, takes a ton of data and engineering work. Google already had a leg up from being one of the first players in the smart speakeer game and all the years they spent on google assistant. Apple decided to make the fastest, most efficient chips for a phone and it shows but they probably couldn't do that and optimize for on device dictation the way google has with their Pixels. People always complain Pixel phones aren't as fast as the competition or don't put up the same benchmarks or whatever but that's because they focused their energy on specific use cases like dictating rather than making the most state of the art brain for the phone ... I think. I will say I sometimes appreciate siri's relative stupidity, I can ask it to just play a podcast or send a message and it never gives me this "I'm a large language model, I can't help you" nonsense. Kind of reminds me of the old Star Trek Mccoy gag, dammit I'm a doctor not a ... whatever.