Though computer recognition of speech has not yet achieved the levels of sophistication that science fiction writers love to imagine, nowadays it is good enough that your smartphone or tablet can help with the tricky task of converting speech to text. Apps that pull off this trick can help you with your studies or in the office and were the subject of this week’s App Smart column.
One of the chief ways speech recognition and transcription can be useful is in creating reminders or notes. If you’re anything like me, when I have an idea I tend to articulate it best by speaking aloud versus trying to write it down. The advantage of modern smartphones and tablets, usually with the latest operating system upgrade, is that they have basic speech recognition built in, which means you can use a note-taking app like Evernote to record and transcribe your spoken text. The note management features of Evernote, which include the ability to pin an audio file to a note along with images and typed text, could make it a useful tool. It’s free on iOS and Android, and it’s hugely popular. It may be a little too complex for very short notice note-taking needs, however, unless you work to become familiar with the app.
For a far simpler speech-to-notes experience, Voice Dictation for Notes, $1.99 on iOS, is a good option. The app presents you with a graphic that looks like lined note paper, and there’s a prominent microphone button at the top of the left-side icon bar. Pressing this brings up a warning that you are recording at the top of the screen, and then the app transcribes your words. The resulting text can be forwarded to e-mail with the press of a button, or copied so you can paste it into another app.
The app can handle a long list of separate notes, listed on its main page. It shows the first several words of each note to you as a reminder of its content, along with the date the note was created.
It’s a bare bones app and thus may be a great choice if you are working in a busy environment where you simply want to record a note and not fuss with an app interface. At the same time, though, it’s not a sophisticated app and you will find yourself making a lot of manual corrections to the text.
You can also fall back on the built-in “Notes†app in iOS and use Apple’s standard voice-recognition system. But it is not easy to use, and has a few controls that seem too small for fingertips. You may also tire of its fake yellow notepaper look and its limited font selection. Google also has its own note-taking app, Keep, which includes speech-to-text powers.
If you are in the habit of writing a lot of text on your phone or tablet, then it’s definitely worth giving speech recognition apps like these a try. You may even find yourself being more productive than when you type words on a touchscreen keyboard.
Quick Call
The free beta edition of launcher app Everything.me has arrived in the Google Play store for Android. It’s an app that tries to be a clever front-end for your smartphone by adapting the apps it offers to you based on what you are using your phone for at that moment. Compared with the static homepage of fixed apps that Android typically has, you may find this app enhances your experience.
