I’ve been using this app to transcribe a large number of letters, some typed and some handwritten. The error rate is good, generally less than 5%. With a couple of OCR programs I was getting error rates on the order of 20% on typed copy, and somewhat higher on longhand items. There are some recurring, and now predictable, errors such substituting “the” for “a” about half the time, and rarely recognizing “of” as a word— “if” can be a problem, too. Must have difficulty with labial fricatives! And there are some others that tend to recur, such as not recognizing “Open parentheses, Parenthesis, or Close parentheses” as valid punctuation commands…but it does a good job of recognizing the words, and spelling them correctly! As an annoyance, it’s relatively minor… Overall, I’m happy with its performance, but there’s still room for improvement. It appears to use an AI engine for next-word prediction, but the engine is not as intelligent as it should be…not yet ready to take over the world!
I recently lost my hearing and I'm deaf in both ears. I like your app for one on one conversations. Having extra people in the room makes it difficult because this app picks up everything, including my voice. Only one person can speak at a time. Now I need to find an app that will work with my iPhone so I can do phone calls. I could not find one on your website and this surprised me. I hav not been able to figure out how to save or share a file. I've tried over and over but instructions are lacking.
App shows a menu of supported speech languages but some of the desired language cannot be selected
I previously wrote a negative (2*) preview because after i purchased the Pro Version, I tried to set the app to do the voice-to-text in the language i selected but did not see any button or a box to confirm the selected language beside the “Dismiss” option. But after a few tries, I realized that after I selected “Setup” to choose the speech recognition language, I just needed to select “Dismiss” to go back to the interface where I can start the voice-to-text process by tapping on the red button at the bottom of the screen and just said a few words in the previously set language and saw that the speech is being transcribed in that set language. I wish there were some instructions guiding the user on how to set up the app to do the v-to-t in that language. Thus, the 4 stars instead of 5 ones.
And I have used all kinds of dictation apps going back to Via Voice (IBM). Remember that one? Since IBM took VV off the market, Dragon/Nuance has always been the standard bearer, and their products were always good (except for tech support) , but this app is far superior. Works great on iOS/iPADOS/MACOS. Accuracy is remarkable. Corrections done super easy, usually only very minor ones are needed. Customizable UI. Apple share sheet gets you into Messages, Mail, Files app, Notes, you name it. Incredibly fast. Huge increase in my productivity. Try it for free…you’ll see what I mean. Also extremely affordable with flexible payment plans if you decide to buy after the initial free usage. I have tried all the apps currently available….this one is head and shoulders above all the rest.
I’m disabled and bought this app because I have limited use of my hands and had high hopes. As of right now it’s doing the exact same thing that it does if I were to not use the app. Every 60 seconds or so it just stops. I paid for the upgrade for the year and I don’t know what I paid for. If you click on the contact button it does nothing. It’s broken. You go nowhere. So so far I am unable to contact anyone to get help and it’s not working. I would like somebody to just contact me so I can get help. The reviews seem to state that this is a good app, so I’m guessing something is just going wrong for me. And I don’t know why the contact link leads nowhere. I need help.
Met my expectations, great app with scope for improvement
I am using this tool for an hour now and I already did a good 1000 words. Few issues I found using this app was inability to edit while recording (I feel if you just provide a backspace on the editor) and ads are not annoying at all. They come and go. Man has to eat! I wish if you can configure your AdWords in a way that display relevant ones. I think the setup should ask a few optional questions, and create a persona (like a profile) and show those types of ads. You need to mine your customers and and try to understand who are they and why are they using your app? I am sure you are doing these, if not, consider them. Thanks
I received the following response from the developers: “Dictate is a transcription app for 'dictation". That means that the speakers must be in front of the microphone. We have written in our description that it is not suitable for meetings or (recorded) conferences or video calls. The app works very well when you use it as it is intended. Please consider this in your rating. Thanks I reviewed the description for this app and I can’t find where it says that about the app. Anyhow, I’m going to let my five star rating stand since I really don’t feel like pursuing this any further.
I am constantly having thoughts I want to write down to act on or remember later, but driving is my favorite activity, which has been frustrating for much of my life. This app changed EVERYTHING. I don’t have to start a voice memo I have to transcribe later or start a transcription program that will only listen to me for a certain length of time, which often leads to pressure panic and forgetting what I was going to say. This straightforward app records what I say accurately, making my jumbled thoughts easy to sort through later. So glad I found this!
This is the best dictation to text app that I have tried and I have tried many of them. It is more accurate and clever at understanding punctuation as you go than others plus it has a few keys visible while dictating that can help control punctuation. It is well worth the annual fee. I highly recommend it. You can export your dictated text to other iPhone apps plus cut and paste to do the same thing if you prefer. It is simple to use and has a simple user interface but the results are great.
This is a great app in that there’s not limit to what I can dictate, it never stops “listening” when I pause to think, and I can easily email my writing to myself as a back-up. The latest update, however, is a lot less accurate. Mid-sentence capitalization, missed spacing, and an increase in misspelled words means my editing time has doubled. The IBN software team tells me this is an issue with Apple’s text to speech and not their app, so while I’ll still use it, I can’t whole-heartedly recommend it. I’ll adjust my review if the problems get ironed out in a subsequent update. I’m an author who dictates 4K+ words per day.
For too long I’d been misusing my smartphone and my laptop at the expense of my hands, wrists and shoulders. I'm addressing those physical problems, but in the meantime I’ve been using and recommending this DICTATION app to clients and friends for some time now. Eg a client who had a shoulder accident and surgery is so grateful. The DICTATION app is far far better than other dictation system I've tried. No comparison. Worth well worth the price. And if you have any questions, email inventor Christian! You’ll hear back shortly with answers!
The editing needs improvement. Otherwise app is very good. The app is superior in comparison to other dictation apps I used before. The app should have more commands supporting editing. I like the app very much, however manual erasing and deleting unwanted words or sentences is slowing me down. I would love a commend to delete the last word for example, scratch it or something like that. I use the app because the price is very good and it recognizes my speech well. However, they need to add the command to delete at least the last word or sentence.
A few features would make this perfect. First, if I could use this in tandem with a document writing program, such as Word. Second, if there was a word count somewhere on screen. Lastly, if there were more clear directions for getting the text into the various document writers. Copying and pasting isn’t alway ideal and it can make formatting a pain. Also, I’d like to see Thai added to language options. I didn’t see it. I speak Thai, but am not literate. My family speaks Thai on my wife’s side. I would like to be able to speak to write in order to talk to family.
This is the best app for dictation which requires scientific terms. It is easy to use. It makes some mistakes with scientific terminology but is better than the other apps. I have tried thirteen other apps and this is the best app. It is expensive compared to most other speech to text apps. However the large cost of this appto me is worth the price. For simple dictation, choose the free or inexpensive apps. For more sponistictated dictation I recommend this one. The Apple app is good but I believe that this one is better. I can easily send the finished dictation to Word etc.
Warning: if you use this app, you must turn off the iCloud support, otherwise you risk losing everything. And, if you have multiple devices linked to the iCloud, you must turn them all off of iCloud support. I lost a half a dozen large transcriptions because of this problem before we discovered it. Otherwise, this thing is great. Who can complain for a dollar a month? It has saved me hours of typing, and has given me an opportunity to use exercise time to “write.”
I’ve use this for a few years and it worked quite nicely, but then I’ve noticed over the last two months I’ll be dictating and I look and it’s all going in and then I’m not looking the whole time and when I finish, I notice the whole first half or more is totally gone. Words that were in at the start. This has happened now about 10 times so I think I’m going to be looking for another dictation app.
I purchased this app only 24 hours ago, but have used it for several hours. There is an intermittent bug that causes the program to freeze. In each instance, I was still able to email my dictation to myself so the work was not lost. However, the program would not restart. A black box, inside the red record button, flashed slowly and touching the record button had no effect. There was no way of rebooting the program. I shut down my system, tried all the software controls, even changed languages (purely out of frustration)...nothing worked. A nice program when it works. An inexpensive app. It just cannot be relied on, which makes a good program a source of frustration.
My husband endures severe hearing issues, as well as other major issues. He had surgery for two serious cancers on his head in July, but, due to his age, he was hospitalized for months and even now has a caregiver. My stepson suggested this app and it is wonderful. Instead of the frustrating yelling, scribbling on note pads and lack of communication, we now type in and send a message that this poor old guy can understand. More folks should know about this app.
. I tried Dragon in text past but the voice recognition here is better. i was able to quickly download and start using this app. I soon realized “new paragraph” is a useful verbal cue. While I could make my drafts better by using the help guide, it is very user friendly and I had the basics I needed on first try. I do wish there was a way to store files in the app, but exporting them works since that’s the ultimate goal anyway.
This app lets you dictate indefinitely, which is fantastic. The downsides are: 1. If the dictation is incorrect, the blue lines under suspect words are not present the way they are in Apple dictation which means that instead of tapping on the word or phrase to fix it, you have to stop dictation, then tap on the edit button, then scan through for errors, then fix them, then tap on the edit button again, then start dictation over again. 2. The interface is old and clunky. 3. You can dictate only in this app, then transfer the dictation to the app of your choice. This is fairly easy, just another step.
Sitting at my computer is painstaking. Having an idea however, and having an accurate means of getting that idea down using dictation is priceless. I can easily speak 1,000 words in 15-20 minutes and be done for the day. Or I can sit at my computer and spend 4 hours hashing out the same number of words with my eyes ready to bug out from staring at the screen. I will say it’s not a hundred percent, but it will learn your speech and hit 80% regularly. I’ll never stop using this app.
No longer do you need to let your fingers do the talking!!!
When I found that I could talk my way instead of doing what all young do with their fingers, I being very old could be faster, better and with more fun accomplish what I needed to say! Yes there are a few mistakes, but the I use it the more it learns how I think and finish a sentence correctly! Thank you to the people who have made a great way to tell a story! I tell a lot about a fabulous life I’ve led!!!
When I write, I love to listen to music to keep myself in a flow state, but as soon as I begin recording the music shuts off. I have Beats Solo 3 to listen to my music while I write. If we use headphones, which doesn’t interfere with the microphone on the phone, I was hoping to be able to dictate in that way so I could get a better word count, and my books finished faster. This is an issue I wish every dictation program addressed. Access to the microphone shouldn’t impede on whether I can use headphones to listen to music while I write. I’m rating this a 2 ⭐️ for right now until this issue is fixed.
The voice recognition is about as good as Dragon home version though a fraction of the cost. Additionally there are the advantages of portability over the desktop version of Dragon. Main gripe is that editing doesn’t work with my Bluetooth keyboard on the iPad, and it would be great if you could dictate directly into wherever your desired destination is. The user interface is extremely intuitive though, easy to learn, and the ability to dictate lengthy chunks of text is a game changer. Also syncs between iPhone and iPad automatically.
Pro user here. I’ve been dealing with this for months now, but I want my voice to be heard. The clear and edit button should be at the bottom replacing copy and send. There is no point to the copy button. The app copies automatically. And it’s much quicker to double press or swipe over (or manually open) you’re messaging app to paste what you have dictated, than to send from within the app. At least give us the option to customize which buttons go where. Reaching for clear and edit every time (plus those buttons are smaller than the bottom ones) is a hassle and has been an “annoyance“ since I’ve started using this app. Don’t get me wrong, the dictation abilities are miles ahead of Siri and I want to use this app every single time I message someone, but you gotta make it a little more accessible please.
This is a pretty intuitive app and fairly decisive. if it would be nice if you could correct mistakes by voice as you dictate so that you didn’t have to proofread later. But, I know that it more than likely have to be a full blown dictation software server like the dragon dictation software and would be very expensive. I used the dragon app for a good while until they started charging the monthly fee. This app will do everything the dragon app would do and just as good. 👍👍
I'm writing this review because the app won't stop reminding me to do it. This is the best text to speech app that I have ever used. I have paid over $10 per app for multiple apps. I wanted to buy Dragon naturally speaking, but I use a Mac and they don't sell the software for that anymore. It is helpful to have an app like this where I can speak my thoughts. I use it for texting sometimes. That's really it. I really like the app. Sometimes it adds either a letter or word at the end of the paragraph that I have spoken.
If you want to write but when you start on your laptop you seem to get stuck because your ideas are faster then you type. Then this is the app for you. You talk and it writes for you and then you just upload to where ever you want. It’s awesome. I use English and Spanish. Works great. Pay for it. Your driving and you can put your words in writing. No transcribing voice to letters. BEST APP EVER.
While I believe that I enunciate well enough, there a barrage of misspelled or completely misinterpreted words. Very frustrating when you’re trying to dictate a novel and it’s going to be hours before you get to actually sit in front of a computer and try to decipher what it is that you were saying. And considering that I dictated all of this with my phone, not in the app, and all of these words and phrases were transcribed correctly, it’s not the phone.
I use this app to show me the words people speak to me because I’m hearing impaired. Unfortunately it’s not always perfect and sometimes puts the wrong words. embarrassingly even sometimes uses words of explicit foul language that the people did not even say those words but the voice recognition technology has mistaken what was said. I wish there was a filter that could be turned on to censure the words chosen by the app so bad words would not show up in the text. Thanks!
This app saves me a lot of time. I’ll dictate my notes and then copy/send them to my email to keep on file.... and print later. It’s a great app for dictating things like where I have various shop tools and small parts stored, or where I have important files to let my wife and kids know. It’s so easy to edit words that aren’t in the dictionary. I use the app at least weekly.
Could be a good program if you did not put it in words that you don’t say types what it wants to do when nobody’s talking and wouldn’t not try to auto correct all the time. It high never say the word seri, but he always wants to put Siri down. I am not sure if it is the program constantly misunderstanding what is being said or if Radio is the iPad itself in capable of working properly. It screws up most of the time. Picks up half the words and half of those words are incorrect.
I just downloaded the app and seem to be 100% satisfied! As time is of essence for me and voice texting is much easier than having to type anything up, this dictation app seems to do the job! I was surprised to find out it also will translate from English to another another language. This will help translate info to pt’s who don’t speak English. So far, so good
Even though this app apparently uses the Apple translation service, it seems to be a bit better than the Apple dictation option, although I don’t know why it should be better. In any case the layout and use is clear and straightforward. I like the way that you can upload your file directly into your email app. It would be nice if I could also directly upload into my word processing app, rather than having to copy and paste.
I’ve been working on a project with tons of notes This app has given me a great boost in productivity. I appreciate the ability to send text to a variety of apps as well as the copy/paste feature. It would be helpful to allow us to edit existing text before continuing with the dictation. The save to notes option helps as you can switch to that app for editing.
When you select text, the application does not give you the option to delete your selected text—which is a very basic command in ALL applications. Which is a huge inconvenience. The only option is to clear the entire dictation message. What planet is this developer on that built this app??? This is common sense that the user needs to “delete text.” The standard edit option to change the color of your dictation text is missing also. The voice detection should be more accurate.
I needed something to help me take minutes and I don’t want to spend time cleaning the Teams transcript. I had brain surgery and cannot type as fast anymore with my left hand so this is a life saver for me be abuse I have to take minutes and I can’t type as fast and using this makes it a piece of cake now granted there’s still some editing required but not too extensive
I have used this app for several courses in conversations and it has been incredibly easy to use and sends into a word processing software every single time. It’s excellent for brainstorming on a walk, recording an important conversation, or just capturing the lectures conversations and notes happening around you. I would order it up again.
Very accurate “live” closed captioning for deaf/hard of hearing.
I use this app in meetings and pass around a Bluetooth microphone. Dictates speech to text pretty close to 100% accuracy in most settings. Very pleased with how it’s working so far. Suggest to allow connections to multiple Bluetooth microphones as a feature. Thanks again for creating this and excellent customer service earlier today!
This allows me to dictate my notes in the car and then paste them later through my apple notes to my computer paperwork. It has saved time and allowed me to see more patients while completing the charting in a timely manner. It allows pauses and puts in the punctuation when you say “comma”, “period”, etc. You can copy and send to just about anywhere. Only a little correction is needed for medical terminology.
When you start climbing the octogenarian ladder-as I have, new challenges seem to await you. At least that’s been my experience so far. As a result, I seem to bound almost instantly to most new things that I don’t have to struggle with very much. This app is new to me at this time but I am enjoying it and the learning curve is not too challenging. Now that’s a rather nice day for a ole chap like me. Carpe Diem.
I’m used to using dragon so this one was unfamiliar to me. I found that it would not go to the next line when I told it to NorWould it put a number instead of writing it out for me. I also found it difficult to figure out where it was saving to however I did finally figure it out. It hears really well so I was pleased with that. Overall I would say it’s a very good app
I love this app. It is enabling me to get a huge amount of work done quickly. I do have a wish list: wish I could delete; i wish I could insert; wish it was better with punctuation. Did figure out that I can say period and a period will appear. Not long after I was doing some stream of consciousness about becoming a woman. It led to some confusion in editing, LOL.
I have the paid version and have been encountering some issues. I contacted support and they have given me wonderful support, and in a very timely manner. As it turns out, some of the problems were due to my (sometimes) intermittent internet connection and some were due to my being unfamiliar with some of the settings of the app. All resolved, and a happy customer.
The app is not perfect, but earns five stars because of its price, ease of use and being to export files. You can watch the text as you speak and it is easy to make corrections and then start taking again. I have used a service before where you upload a file and get the text back. This is more accurate.
If you are bilingual in English and Spanish this is ur app!!
Well as a bilingual person who is fluent in English and Spanish . Finding a good dictation app that is great quality on taking dictation in Spanish for on documents and later choose another document to take dictation on English it is hard to find. It also affordable better than others I had try.
I really enjoy dictate. It’s very helpful for me to use when writing reports for my job. One improvement I would make though is in the punctuation feature. The APP puts commas in places all over the place in my document where they are not needed. It takes a lot of time to go back and edit the document. Thank You.
I impressed with this app. with their program. It is far more accurate than the Dragon dictation program, for which I paid far more over the years while Dictate is far easier to use. I can’t the hours I wasted in “training” their program and putting it a lot of writing for analysis. You guys gotta beat them easily.
At the age of 75, I took a bad fall and busted up my left hand. I was focused on finishing several books I am writing, and not being able to type this software was a godsend. It works quite well, but it is not perfect. When I dictated the initials of the National Security Agency it typed “in SA”. But I would say it is better than 99% accurate and most of the mistakes are very reasonable. Highly recommended.
I had some issues with it crashing during dictation in earlier versions, so I abandoned it. But about a year later, I checked again. They fixed everything, at least what I used. The UI looks great and the voice recognition is pretty tight. Good job, folks. You're back in the number one slot!
Dictation - Speech to text allows to dictate, record, translate and transcribe text instead of typing. It uses latest speech to text voice recognition technology and its main purpose is speech to text and translation for text messaging. Never type any text, just dictate and translate using your speech! Nearly every app that can send text messages can be configured to operate with 'Dictation - Speech to text'. Dictate uses the builtin speech to text recognition engine. Dictation - Speech to text features: ► Over 40 Transcribe Languages Dictation - Speech to text supports more than 40 languages. Dictate offers 3 text zones - indicated by language flags - for which you can configure a different language in the settings. Thus you can switch between different language projects with a singe click. ► Over 40 Translation Languages Translation is as easy as pushing the translation button. You can specify the translation target language in the app settings. Then you push the translate button to get it translated. ► Audio Recording Both, your audio recordings and your text files can be accessed via the Apple 'Files' app. ► Transcription of Recorded Audio Files Using the audio file transcription you can transcribe recorded audio files - containing speech - into text at a single click. All major audio file formats are supported. ► iCloud Synchronization Having enabled iCloud, your text is automatically synchronized across all your devices running Dictate, e.g. iPhone, iPad, macOS and Apple Watch. ► Support for Impaired People Dictate now supports the system font size setting and provides configurable button sizes for visual impaired users. Also VoiceOver is carefully configured. ► Easy Text Sharing In order to send your dictated text messages quickly, there is a "Share"-button that allows to launch the target app, i.e. Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Flickr, Email or whatever else is capable of receiving text from the system. ► Subscriptions Dictate offers a 7-day free trial, which converts into regular subscription unless you cancel 24h before end of trial period. ► Important Notes Concerning Subscriptions All above Dictation - Speech to text subscriptions renew within 24 hours before the current period ends, and you will be charged through your iTunes account. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when you purchase a subscription. Manage or cancel your subscription from iTunes Account settings. See our Terms & Conditions (https://www.ibn-software.com/app-terms-conditions) and Privacy Policy (https://www.ibn-software.com/app-privacy-policy).