“Apple is testing a local, offline version of Dictation voice input for iOS devices, according to strings of code found inside of the iOS 7 beta,” Mark Gurman reports for 9to5Mac. “The code, which was discovered by Hamza Sood, is located inside of both iOS 7 betas, but it is not present in iOS 6.”
“Based on what Apple is testing, future versions of iOS could allow an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to process and convert speech from a user right on the device itself,” Gurman reports. “This would speed up the process considerably allowing emails, text messages, notes, and web searches take place via voice quicker than ever.”
Gurman writes, “While we do not have evidence of this, it seems plausible that Apple could eventually port over this technology from Dictation to Siri.”
Read more in the full article here.
I am not sure how this will improve Siri when it can’t recognize the names in my phone list now with big iron in the cloud translating.
iOS 7 has pronunciation training for Siri. Should help.
I use dictation in Messages fairly frequently, and I am often stunned by how fast my spoken words are being returned. I realize there are times or locations where signal strength precludes translation, but more and more I’m amazed rather than frustrated. It’s also getting quite a bit better, both from complete recognition and from the blue underlined alternatives.
Very useful for developing countries with slow or expensive data
Yeah, like the U.S.
LOL!
Well, actually… 🙁
Data so slow, I couldn’t even be bothered to log into my WordPress account.
I loved the idea of Siri, and gave it many months, but I hated the fact that the simple things like dialing phone numbers by name seemed to get much worse via Siri, and eventually turned it off. This may be Apple’s recognition of that, letting the phone do what the phone already did well and just offloading the more complex tasks to Siri in the cloud.
hmmm….
whenever i have had a problem with siri misdialling a number by using the ‘name’ of the callee, i have found it to be the result of my poor enunciation…. it’s the main reason i love siri.
I guess if it has a degree of local personalisation it can improve recognition better over time and take on access tasks that a cloud solution could not do as well or off line not at all.
I think this offline dictation may also be in the latest OS X.
I thought it was so funny when Apple launched Siri because that is the name of one if my cats. She is 9 now so older than the iPhone :p