Dragon Dictation updated with iOS 4 support and some new features

Dragon Dictation is one of the most popular free apps on the iPhone and iPad, and now it has been updated to support iOS 4. Nuance Communications, creators of the app, have added a pop-up toolbar that allows you to speak a status update and send it directly to Facebook or Twitter. You can also speak and send the text to the clipboard. As in the original version, you can dictate emails and text messages.

Another nice to feature is the app now saves your dictated text if you are interrupted by a phone call. This latest version also supports U.K English now, as well as German. The app already supports Spanish, Italian and French.

I've had an advance copy of the app for a week, and I can confirm it works as advertised, although my high school German is a bit rusty so I didn't try that feature.

Someday, I hope, Apple will build complete speech recognition into the iPhone and iPad. If they do, I hope they use the Nuance speech engine, which is very accurate and easy to use. Until then, Dragon Dictation is a must download for use with email, social networking and texting. The app runs on iOS3.1 or later on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

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Source: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dragon-dictation/id341446764?…

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Dragon Dictation is one of the most popular free apps on the iPhone and iPad, and now it has been updated to support iOS 4. Nuance...

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Jackboss

Dragon Dictation maybe the most famous speech recognition software for now.
They made the app for Apple, and it's still popular.

There's one more option for speech recognition software users.
Wave To Text v5.2
http://www.111download.com/product/wave-to-text-v.html

July 24 2010 at 10:21 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Christian

1) A dictation app that is capable of dictation in German. But it is not available in the German iTunes store. Weird.

2) An app that hijacks all of your contacts and uploads it to the developers' servers without the consent of the user (see the comments in iTunes)? That is frightening and disqualifies the app right from the start, no matter what else it might be capable of.

July 24 2010 at 4:49 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Mr.Clicky

Have a look at the Comments section in the App Store, there appear to be some serious privacy issues with this app uploading all your Contacts to their servers with no way of deleting or managing them. I'm surprised TUAW is happy to promote an app with this sort of cloud hanging over its head.

July 24 2010 at 3:33 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Mr.Clicky's comment

Mel Martin

Here is a link to the Dragon Dictation privacy policy from Nuance.

http://blog.dragonmobileapps.com/2009/12/what-dragon-dictation-for-iphone-does.html

I find the policy reasonable and hardly evil. They get your contact info so they will recognize the name when you speak it. If you are unhappy about this, it is quite easy to turn that feature off. They make clear in their policy that they don't use address information, or phone numbers. Just the names, which I don't feel is an issue at all.

You are not forced to use the app, and of course you can turn the contacts feature off.

It appears you would be happy to have the system not recognize your contact names. Or you would be complaining that it does't work. Strange.

Thanks for writing.

Mel
TUAWere is a link to the Dragon Dictation privacy policy from Nuance.

http://blog.dragonmobileapps.com/2009/12/what-dragon-dictation-for-iphone-does.html

I find the policy reasonable and hardly evil. They get your contact info so they will recognize the name when you speak it. If you are unhappy about this, it is quite easy to turn that feature off. They make clear in their policy that they don't use address information, or phone numbers. Just the names, which I don't feel is an issue at all.

You are not forced to use the app, and of course you can turn the contacts feature off.

Thanks for writing.

Mel
TUAW

July 24 2010 at 10:47 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

FightTheFuture

this is essential now that Texting while driving is illegal in 30 states.

July 24 2010 at 2:08 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Tony

Really? It's been very high accuracy for me. Most of the time if I have any edits at all it's at most 1 or 2 words...but for shorter bits (that I had previously copied to the clipboard to post into either Twitter or Facebook, but can now add directly), it would often get 100%.

Perhaps you should take the marbles out of your mouth before using this app? ;-)

July 23 2010 at 6:09 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

bingo

Not in the Swiss Store :-(

July 23 2010 at 5:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to bingo's comment

steve

I just now downloaded this app, and so far have found it to be 100 percent accurate. Note that you can 'speak' any end-of-sentence punctuation (period, comma, question mark, etc.). Biggest complaint so far: no 'Erase All' key that I've found. It's rather amazing, really.

July 23 2010 at 5:53 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

stefan_desrosiers

LOL now you won't be able to tell whose upating their facebook status and who's just crazy and talking to themselves...

July 23 2010 at 2:46 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to stefan_desrosiers's comment

sirpreis

In the settings I only see english (UK or US) as options. Where's the german? :(

July 23 2010 at 3:06 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Benbro

I hadn't realised there was a difference.

July 24 2010 at 5:39 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

willyboyd