Dragon Dictation

Dragon Dictation is an extremely simple, fairly interesting little transcription application for the iPhone. Right here in the beginning, I should say that the best thing about it is that it’s free. If it weren’t free, I highly doubt it would be worth the cost to buy it, especially because it literally nothing more than a dictation device. That being said, there’s some cool things about this application.

The first thing that you’ll notice when you boot it up is that it updates itself with your contact names. This isn’t to say that it will necessarily be able to recognize them when it hears them, but it certainly adds to the probability that it will.

From there, the process is pretty straightforward. Tap the screen and start talking. I would suggest that you talk slowly and enunciate for the best accuracy. When you’re finished, tap again. It will now show you its best guess at what you just said. You have the option here of opening up your keyboard and altering the text (sort of defeats the purpose of the application when it makes a lot of mistakes), tapping the red circle and re-recording, or sending the text.

The sharing part is the most intriguing. It will allow you to text whatever you want to upload, email it, post it to facebook and/or twitter, or copy it all as a block of text for you to then paste somewhere else.

In all, it’s really not great at what it does. There’s probably a better version of this type of application somewhere. But balance the faults against the fact that it’s free, and I feel that you will find it’s worth the download to have this in your toolbag. It can definitely be handy if you’re driving back from somewhere to record a script on the way. Also, it’s important to mention that attaching an external mic, such as the Blue Mikey (it’s small and decent), it vastly improves the accuracy of Dragon Dictation. I can’t recommend it as the best thing out there for dictation, but it’s pretty good for being free.