Dragon dictation is the first usable Voice-Recognition App in App Store that enables iPhone users to transcribe speech into editable text. Then, the app will let you send the text as an SMS message or e-mail, or copy the text to paste in other apps. As per the company, it gives you 500 percent speed increase over typing on the iPhone’s virtual keyboard.
It relies on the same high-regarded engine that powers Dragon NaturallySpeaking and MacSpeech Dictate, Of course it’s not as accurate as Desktop TTS engines. All the text processing is done in the cloud. You record your speech, which is then sent to Nuance’s servers for recognition. The resulting text can be edited by tapping on a word.
“Dragon Dictation takes the messaging experience on the revolutionary iPhone to a whole new level,” said Nuance Mobile SVP and general manager Michael Thompson in a statement. “Dragon Dictation is also incredibly natural and intuitive. Users will soon find they’re speaking more than typing using the power of speech to communicate even faster, whatever they’re doing and wherever they are.”
The app is pretty simple, and some quick testing showed that the recognition engine is fairly accurate. I guess the compression needed to quickly send the recorded speech to Nuance’s servers caused some of the accuracy issues.
Give Dragon Dictation a try, the app is available free from the App Store for an unspecified limited time only.