iPhone dictation - a couple of small frustrations

September 1, 2016 1:03 PM

I dictate my text messages, but there are a couple of things I'm finding tricky to do! 1) I'd like to say "etc", something I say a lot, but if I say "etcetera" it writes it out in full. 2) I'd like to say "idk" and not have it render in capitals! I can theoretically do this with "no caps idk" but that just becomes "i DK".
posted by piato to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Hmmm ... for me, "etcetera" renders as "At Cetera," then autocorrects to "Etc." Your mileage obviously varies.

Also, I'm curious as to why you don't want IDK capitalized.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 2:01 PM on September 1, 2016

Are there published guides on how to train the iPhone/Siri? In my case I often want to call "Seaman Car Service" and you can guess how that comes out (even though Seaman Car Service is in my contacts). Hope this piggyback is OK, thanks.
posted by JimN2TAW at 2:48 PM on September 1, 2016 [4 favorites]

So for me, the first time it came up as "etc.", and then it autocorrected to "at Cetera". The second time, it came up as "etc." and it stayed that way. So I'm thinking it has to do with pronouncing things a particular, precise way, and being able to do that every time. Or it could depend on context - I tried it in two different sentences.

(My phone also turns "San Felipe" into "Sinfully Bay". I'd like to take a cruise to Sinfully Bay someday.)
posted by MexicanYenta at 8:03 PM on September 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Have you tried "no caps on idk"? (Don't know whether you need to explicitly say "no caps off" afterward.)

Sympathy. Sometimes I feel like I need to speak like a robot to make the voice recognition work right.
posted by Lexica at 8:33 PM on September 3, 2016