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For me, there are two major barriers to voice-to-text dictation: 1) when I'm writing a message (probably due to laziness), I don't always have the full thing f

by gtf21 10y ago

For me, there are two major barriers to voice-to-text dictation: 1) when I'm writing a message (probably due to laziness), I don't always have the full thing formed in my head. If I were dictating to a person, abortive words and phrases would just be ignored, but when dictating to a machine I have to manually go back to erase / correct mistakes. This can be a lot of work for a long message. 2) I don't always feel comfortable speaking my messages in public; it feels a little exposing. The nice thing about text-based communication is privacy.

eridius 10y ago
I'm pretty sure that Siri lets you give it instructions while dictating, e.g. "delete last word", though I almost never use dictation so I'm not too familiar with this feature. Of course, if the error happened 5 words ago, it can be too much trouble to fix it with dictation.
- gtf21 10y ago
  I've found this pretty hit-and-miss. Sometimes Siri writes out my commands because they aren't actually commands...
uola 10y ago
I just don't see what the huge improvement would be. It's really not that hard to type compared to have voice recognition for all kinds of languages, dialects and accents. Not to speak of "press button, speak into phone, wait for translation, proof read text, press send, wait for confirmation, wait for response, do it all again". And while whatapp is nice, it's like five, or even ten, years ago nice by asian standards. The "west" fucked up by trying to protect telecom companies revenues so the networks become fragmented. Imagine if SMS instead was a free secure data channel with pubsub features, there would be huge incentives for interoperability. All in all I think the post kind of shows the different of mindset in the west vs. emerging markets. In emerging markets people use whatever they can however they can. If you go and visit suppliers in china they often have three phones and two desktop clients open at the same time. With built-in translation and sending files, pictures and money back and forth.
- gtf21 10y ago
  For me the improvement would be when messaging while walking. Dumbwalkers (people walking around with their eyes on their phone screens rather than their surroundings) drive me up the wall. I would prefer accurate dictation so I could walk with some awareness of my surroundings. Whilst I can (with decent accuracy) type blind on my iPhone, I still have to proofread as the accuracy isn't good enough yet.
chias 10y ago
2 is the bigger issue for me, but from a courtesy angle: I was raised to view talking on your cell phone around other people as impolite. For those unmoved by propriety: picture the last time you were on a bus (or other public space) and saw a bunch of people texting or otherwise using their devices silently. Imagine this picture where everyone is shouting into their phones in order to overcome the background noise of everyone else shouting into their phones.
- gtf21 10y ago
  Apropos of etiquette, I'd say it's context-dependent. Even walking in the street I am slightly uncomfortable dictating my messages (maybe it's just a privacy thing, or maybe it's because it makes my speech stilted enough that I become self-conscious).

by gtf21 10y ago

eridius 10y ago

I'm pretty sure that Siri lets you give it instructions while dictating, e.g. "delete last word", though I almost never use dictation so I'm not too familiar with this feature. Of course, if the error happened 5 words ago, it can be too much trouble to fix it with dictation.

gtf21 10y ago
I've found this pretty hit-and-miss. Sometimes Siri writes out my commands because they aren't actually commands...

uola 10y ago

I just don't see what the huge improvement would be. It's really not that hard to type compared to have voice recognition for all kinds of languages, dialects and accents. Not to speak of "press button, speak into phone, wait for translation, proof read text, press send, wait for confirmation, wait for response, do it all again". And while whatapp is nice, it's like five, or even ten, years ago nice by asian standards. The "west" fucked up by trying to protect telecom companies revenues so the networks become fragmented. Imagine if SMS instead was a free secure data channel with pubsub features, there would be huge incentives for interoperability. All in all I think the post kind of shows the different of mindset in the west vs. emerging markets. In emerging markets people use whatever they can however they can. If you go and visit suppliers in china they often have three phones and two desktop clients open at the same time. With built-in translation and sending files, pictures and money back and forth.

gtf21 10y ago
For me the improvement would be when messaging while walking. Dumbwalkers (people walking around with their eyes on their phone screens rather than their surroundings) drive me up the wall. I would prefer accurate dictation so I could walk with some awareness of my surroundings. Whilst I can (with decent accuracy) type blind on my iPhone, I still have to proofread as the accuracy isn't good enough yet.

chias 10y ago

2 is the bigger issue for me, but from a courtesy angle: I was raised to view talking on your cell phone around other people as impolite. For those unmoved by propriety: picture the last time you were on a bus (or other public space) and saw a bunch of people texting or otherwise using their devices silently. Imagine this picture where everyone is shouting into their phones in order to overcome the background noise of everyone else shouting into their phones.

gtf21 10y ago
Apropos of etiquette, I'd say it's context-dependent. Even walking in the street I am slightly uncomfortable dictating my messages (maybe it's just a privacy thing, or maybe it's because it makes my speech stilted enough that I become self-conscious).