I plan to buy an iPhone 4S next week, but I want to know more about its capacity to take dictation and to translate it to printable text. The manual says,

"(c) Siri. If your iOS Device supports Siri, which includes the dictation
feature, these features allow you to make requests, give commands and
dictate text to your device using your voice."

This is the only reference to "dictation" and it does not make it clear that I can produce printed documents after dictating them into Siri. I would like to be able to produce letter sized documents that have about three single spaced pages. I would be happy to transfer the document to my Mac Pro and print from a word processing application if necessary. Does anyone know whether this can actuallly be done? Thanks.

Siri does a decent job of transcription, but not 100%

That said, on the 4S, there is a little microphone key near the spacebar on the keyboard. Tapping that brings a microphone. It works pretty much anywhere the keyboard appears, from Messages to Mail to Twitter and other purchased/free apps.

In other words, dictation is not a separate thing on its own, rather it works anywhere one could tap on the keyboard.

If you want three page letter size output, you'll need an app that can do that using the keyboard, such as Pages or perhaps a simple text editor.

Thank you very much. Just to clarify, would I open the Pages app and set a cursor or something there to show where I want the text and then activate Siri and start to dictate?

Yes, but it is not the full Siri in that you cannot issue commands but you can dictate pretty much any text.

OK. That makes sense and it greatly enhances the value of the iPhone 4S for me. I suppose I'll probably have to do a little voice training so my voice and word choices are understood, but that will be a small price to pay for the tremendous convenience that this feature will be for me.

I know I can always count on this forum for useful help and I try to contribute where I can, but, frankly, I'm usually in the learner mode. Best regards.

I have had to do ZERO voice training and it even comprehends my Texas drawl. As far as I know there isn't any mechanism for training.

I bought a version of Dragon speech to text software several years ago and voice training was a big deal. I gave up on it because it was more labor to make it work than it was to just type the stuff without all the hassle. Apparently, from what I've read since receiving your last post, they've collected so much speech data that training is not very important now, except certain English speakers like Scots, Bostonians, thick southern accents, etc. still have a little trouble. Apparently, from what you wrote, your accent isn't in need of training.

Thanks again for helping me out. I've always wanted to do speech to text, but my first experience wasn't good.

I'm trying not to beat this subject to death, but I have one more question. When I speak to a group, I put my current, small recorder in my shirt pocket and attach a tiny microphone to my tie. The small cord connecting the mike to the recorder is visible only from the tie to the edge of my suit coat. If I use the iPhone 4S as the recorder, can I connect a small mike from my tie to the iPhone in my shirt pocket? Or, how about a bluetooth connection from a small microphone? I found a combo earphones and microphone on the Apple Store page, but there was no mention of a recording mike only. Obviously, it would be unacceptable to hold the iPhone up to my mouth while talking to a group.

While I have not tried it personally, I see no reason why either a wired or bluetooth microphone would not work. I use my iPhone via bluetooth in my car all the time and it works very well.

I have dictated several sentences, even paragraphs, complete with punctuation marks and achieved complete and accurate conversion to text. But I don't know how long you can go on without overflow. It is possible to record hours of speech, but how big a chunk you can dictate for text conversion is something else.

If an hour of speech were recorded, could it later be run through the "converter" at the "converter's" pace so as to avoid overflow?

As I said, "I don't know…"

I don't think there's a way to record something on the iPhone and then have Siri process it later. I won't swear to it, but I don't know of any way to do it.

Thanks for the help. I'll bug the Apple reps at the local store re this last question.

I use the wired earbud headset all the time with Siri. Just hold the button down for a few seconds to activate Siri. It should also work by tapping the mic button on the keyboard, but can't say I remember doing that.

I opened a new Google document (using G-Whizz) and was able to dictate using the iPhone built-in mic. I recorded a for nearly twenty seconds with no drop-outs, and Siri got it perfectly. I said "period" or "exclamation point" for those punctuation marks.

give it a try!

thank you, Roger, for your experience report. I won't be purchasing the iPhone until the end of the week, so I won't be able to report back until then.

no problem! I think you will love it!

I finally got my new iPhone 4S working today. Setting up the iCloud was a huge problem. I took it to the Apple Genius Bar and they fixed it. The big problem was that I couldn't verify my AppleID and its password. They used their WiFi to connect with the mother ship whereas I was using Verizon's cell phone connection. I speculate that Verizon may limit what can be done on its system whereas the WiFi hookup can handle more heavy duty jobs. The Apple people were very careful not to bad mouth Verizon. Although I use Verizon, I bought my iPhone from Apple because they have always been there for me when I have a problem. As usual, they took good care of me. In retrospect, I should have gone to them last Saturday. It would have saved me a lot of grief. Thanks to all for your comments. I really appreciate this forum.

I have made an effort to try to use Siri for recording a long speech. It's good for about four or five lines before it beeps that it has maxed out. That is roughly 60 to 70 words. You can then hit the Siri button and continue the document for another 60 or 70 words before it beeps again. That isn't going to work for me, but it was a nice try. Also, I've become leery of having confidential stuff make a trip through Apple's facilities and back to me. That route has not yet shown that it is hacker-proof.

Nuance sells dictation systems for the Mac for $150 and $200 and legal and medical versions for $600 each. I'm going to try the $200 version when I get the time. My work has backed up while I've been messing with the iPhone.

My son uses one of the $600 medical dictation systems and finds that with a really good microphone and a quiet room it is approximately 98% accurate. Unfortunately the errors are often hard to catch and, in his case, almost always critical requiring careful re-reading and hand editing. But it is still faster than trying to manually enter all the data.

It seems that this particular technology has made great progress since I bought and then abandoned an early version. Still, it's not perfect and sometimes produces humorous results. My brief experience with Siri has given me a first impression that it is good for some things and not others. Knowing the difference is my challenge right now.