How to Voice Text on iPhone
A practical and easy to learn manual on an often overlooked, yet versatile and efficient texting feature.
Texting is an artform, it changed the lexicon across cultures, joining us at the thumbs. Unfortunately, the ability to type a smiley face to express happiness has diluted the opportunity to pour our hearts out via technology. But Apple iOS has a wonderful feature called Dictation that allows us to voice text messages, express ourselves better, and reach out to people.
The best dictation app for iPhone already comes included with your purchase. Dictation, much like Siri, is a convenient feature on the iPhone that saves time, and is fun to use when you know how to use it. When I first started using it, the biggest challenge was getting used to mixing commands with words I wanted to express. Strangely enough Apple’s original documentation lists only part of the available commands. However, once learned and conquered, there’s no going back, so let’s get started.
The concept of voice dictation
It takes a little brain rewiring to dictate a message, but once you get the swing of it, it’s fun. The concept is easy: dictate your message keeping a steady pace, call out punctuation and voice out a few hieroglyphs (emojis) to pepper your messages with emotion. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be texting scrolls for the ages in no time.
How to switch on the Dictation feature
If it’s not activated, Dictation can be turned on in your settings:
- Settings > General > Keyboard.
- Toggle Enable Dictation to On.
Using Dictation 101
The voice to text iPhone app is easy to access, simply tap the Microphone button on your keypad. From there iOS lets you know via a responsive waveform that it’s listening to your voice and awaiting your command. So here’s a quick example of how to use it.
- Tap the Microphone button on your keyboard
- Speak
How to add punctuation
Easy, just call it out. For example if you want to quote Charles Dickens’ famous phrase, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” simply tap the Microphone button and dictate it in the following manner:
Quote it was the best of times comma it was the worst of times ellipses end quote.
That’s the gist of it. There are also a few more commands to make texting quicker. These relate to paragraph breaks and capitalization. Take a look at this typical text message:
I just want to keep on loving you, Olga my darling.
Please call me, I miss you so much!
In Dictation, this would be spoken out in the following manner:
I just want to keep on loving you comma cap Olga my darling period new paragraph please call me comma I miss you so much exclamation mark.
To exit Dictation you tap the Keyboard icon and continue as normal.
While in Dictation, you also have access to all the services available if you were typing in thumb mode:
There is a caveat. The Dictation engine will become confused if you speak too fast and will spit out jargon. To avoid this, keep a steady pace, especially when dictating punctuation. If you use Dictation long enough, you’ll develop your own pace and technique over time. That’s all there is to it.
Many thanks to Matt Hopkins for providing the original research, visit his article for a downloadable PNG and PDF list of all the available commands known to date — a great resource for all world-class texters out there. Now you too can enjoy the freedom of thumbless texting!
Joseph Cael Rogue | Rogue Script LLC
