Via LIfeHacker.com
How this betters your life: No need to text while driving anymore, record by voice, send by text … whiz BANG!
What you need: An iPhone (you should be getting used to this by now), Dragon Dictation App (free for now)
Finally an App that’s more exciting than the tips and tricks application. I’m not going to lie I thought of this App years ago but just didn’t have the go ahead (or resources for that matter) to make it myself. A speech to text App has been long needed and Dragon Dictation does it very well. With this app all you need to do is record the message you want to send, then choose the method you want to send it (email or text). Once the message has been dictated you have an option to edit it for accuracy. I have been test driving this app for a few weeks now and there are a few ups and downs to it which I will outline below:
Pros:
- Sleek design – The app itself is very easy to use and very simplistic.
- Accuracy - I’ve used a few speech to text programs in my day and this is by far the most accurate one.
- Editing - On the rare cases when this app doesn’t dictate what you said correctly you can edit before sending. It also allows you to tap on words and gives you alternate suggestions.
Cons:
- Accuracy – Although it is extremely accurate it does not dictate every word correctly. This is probably less a fault of the application and more the fault of my failure to enunciate every word and my habit of making two words into one (don’t act like I’m the only one).
- Usability – When you use this application and it gets the dictation correct it’s a beautiful thing … but on rare occasions when it does get it wrong it feels like it may have been easier to just type it.
- G Rating – This probably should have been in the pros list but if you ever need to send an angry text with a few 4 letter words it seems this application has been programmed to not accept these words and give you the G Rated guess of it’s choice (no matter how loud or clear you scream it … not that i tried).
Overall this is a really cool and functional app. Some people may see it as an extremely useful method to overcome the VA fines for texting and driving. I think it is a little safer but probably not by much. If all else fails just wait until you get home (or at least to a stop light).
If you’ve tried out this app let me know what you think in the comments.
Update: After a recent trip to Driving School and an episode of Oprah I now realize it is NEVER ok to text while driving. Be Safe People.
That sounds like a cool app. I’ll have to give it a try.
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