Can I "voice" (dictate) emails using iPhone 5s?
September 4, 2014 5:39 PM Subscribe
I'm expecting delivery of an iPhone 5s; my first smart phone evah.
I searched various iPhone 5s users' forums, in addition to Google, but couldn't find an answer to this question. I want to dictate an email into the phone, have the words appear in the body of the email, and send it off to the recipient. Is this possible without special software?
Yes. You can either ask siri to send someone an email and dictate it that way. The other method within the email app when you compose an email there's a little microphone icon. when you push that, you can dictate. The little microphone icon is on the keyboard in most places you can enter text.
The dictation is OK, not great but it can get the job done. You also will be able to review what was understood and make edits before you actually send it.
posted by birdherder at 5:45 PM on September 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
The dictation is OK, not great but it can get the job done. You also will be able to review what was understood and make edits before you actually send it.
posted by birdherder at 5:45 PM on September 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
Si, se puede. Just have to have Siri enabled, I think, to have the microphone appear in your email app. For those of us with fumbling fingers, it's magical.
posted by bullatony at 5:47 PM on September 4, 2014
posted by bullatony at 5:47 PM on September 4, 2014
Best answer: Yes- when you open up the keyboard, there's a little microphone icon. Tapping it starts recording your dictation. When done, tap the stop button, and it will turn your recording into text.
I don't know how much you can record- I only record a sentence or two.
Also, you can speak your punctuation, and it will insert it.
(eg, Also comma you can speak your punctuation comma).
It works pretty well, but needs to be able to connect to the internet- the speech to text stuff happens in the cloud.
posted by jenkinsEar at 5:47 PM on September 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
I don't know how much you can record- I only record a sentence or two.
Also, you can speak your punctuation, and it will insert it.
(eg, Also comma you can speak your punctuation comma).
It works pretty well, but needs to be able to connect to the internet- the speech to text stuff happens in the cloud.
posted by jenkinsEar at 5:47 PM on September 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks everyone. As always, you 'Fites come through.
Case closed!
posted by BostonTerrier at 5:52 PM on September 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
Case closed!
posted by BostonTerrier at 5:52 PM on September 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
You can, yes, but hahahahalolololol good luck actually getting the whole thing to go off without a hitch.
posted by Sara C. at 5:54 PM on September 4, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Sara C. at 5:54 PM on September 4, 2014 [3 favorites]
Best answer: http://www.siriuserguide.com/siri-dictation-guide/
The dictation guide. It's better not to dictate too many lines at once, but this will help you know what you can do in terms of ALL CAPS, paragraph breaks, etc, through voice commands.
posted by instead of three wishes at 6:13 PM on September 4, 2014 [3 favorites]
The dictation guide. It's better not to dictate too many lines at once, but this will help you know what you can do in terms of ALL CAPS, paragraph breaks, etc, through voice commands.
posted by instead of three wishes at 6:13 PM on September 4, 2014 [3 favorites]
testing this now. To see how well it does. And figure out if Siri can take dictation well or if this will be all screwed up. Good luck to me!
Hmmm seems fine.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:30 PM on September 4, 2014
Hmmm seems fine.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:30 PM on September 4, 2014
Siri knew I was saying "Citrix" earlier when I was answering an email. It's pretty good if you can enunciate very clearly.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:15 PM on September 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Lyn Never at 9:15 PM on September 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
Actually I'm constantly surprised by how accurate Siri is if I speak clearly. I love this feature.
posted by pintapicasso at 1:28 AM on September 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by pintapicasso at 1:28 AM on September 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
You definitely have to develop your "Siri voice" for it to be accurate, so give it a little time so you can learn how to speak so it can hear you, but once you do it's really nice and surprisingly accurate. For me, my dictating voice is at medium volume with a little extra spacing between the words and enunciating the consonants like I'm singing in a choir again. It still feels very natural as these are minor adjustments. I've done a lot of dictation on both iOS and Android and both have impressed me. When I was getting my masters my process for writing term papers was to dictate my first draft into Google Docs on my phone and edit the document at the same time on my computer.
But definitely be ready to do some manual correction every sentence or two. Think of it as fixing the typos you would have made while manually typing :).
(This message was dictated on my phone was a small amount of manual correction and typing)
posted by Tehhund at 7:19 AM on September 5, 2014
But definitely be ready to do some manual correction every sentence or two. Think of it as fixing the typos you would have made while manually typing :).
(This message was dictated on my phone was a small amount of manual correction and typing)
posted by Tehhund at 7:19 AM on September 5, 2014
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