Dictation on iPhone, iPad, and Mac is a feature I use constantly. But it’s a disgrace on Apple devices. I came to Apple two years ago, and dictation has been way behind where Google and Samsung were five years ago.
The problem is that Apple’s dictation does not learn. For example, I’m a lawyer and depositions are a big part of my practice. I use the word “depo” daily in communications and notes. What does Apple dictation write every time? “depot”. No matter how many times I correct it.
Will Apple Intelligence fix this?
If I or my college classmates had applied for jobs at Apple after we graduated, all but one of us would have been laughed out of there. They hire only the most elite candidates. So how can they be so dumb when it comes to basic, everyday things? It boggles the mind. (Google is the same way.)
Here is another example: my first name is John. Here’s what it writes when I dictate, “Best regards comma new line John”:
Best regards,
Jon.
It knows my name is John, not Jon! (Not that there’s anything wrong with Jon, it’s just not my name.) And who puts a period after someone’s name in a salutation? Why??
Another dictating lawyer here, I share your pain. Also, I have a daughter named Noelle. Siri sometimes gives me that, but more often gives me Noël.
What I don’t understand is why can’t Siri learn on device. I believe that dragon dictate could learn on-device (on a laptop/desktop, anyway) and this was way before the machine learning boom.
Any given interaction depends how much history you can feed them. If you fire up an LLM and it says “Hi Jon,” and you say “No, my name is John,” the LLM can definitely fix the spelling going forward.
And at least in theory, given enough computing power, it would be possible to train/update the LLM based on your personal chat history where - presumably - your name is spelled correctly and it realizes that you’re more likely to be saying “depo” than “depot.”
Apple intelligence gets Siri on track!