This isn’t as flexible as the desktop application, however, as dictation is limited to within Dragon Anywhere – you can’t dictate directly in another app (although you can copy over text from the Dragon Anywhere dictation pad to a third-party app). Furthermore, you can share documents across devices via Evernote or cloud services (such as Dropbox). It also boasts support for boilerplate chunks of text which can be set up and inserted into a document with a simple command, and these, along with custom vocabularies, are synced across the mobile app and desktop Dragon software. However, note that the app was still responsive enough overall. So essentially you get the same excellent speech recognition as seen on the desktop software – the only meaningful difference we noticed was a very slight delay in our spoken words appearing on the screen (doubtless due to processing in the cloud). Others are downloadable software which is only as good as its latest update.ĭragon Anywhere (opens in new tab) is the Nuance mobile product for Android and iOS devices, however this is no ‘lite’ app, but rather offers fully-formed dictation capabilities powered via the cloud. However, different speech-to-text programs have different levels of ability and complexity, with some using advanced machine learning to constantly correct errors flagged up by users so that they are not repeated. Despite this, digital transcription can still service needs such as basic note-taking (opens in new tab) which can still be easily done using a phone app, simplifying the dictation process. This is not least because the technology has matured to the level where mistakes in transcriptions are relatively rare, with some services rightly boasting a 99.9% success rate from clear audio.Įven still, this applies mainly to ordinary situations and circumstances, and precludes the use of technical terminology such as required in legal or medical professions. This has made the best voice to text applications increasingly valuable to users in a range of different environments, from education to business. While the best speech to text software used to be specifically only for desktops, the development of mobile devices and the explosion of easily accessible apps means that transcription can now also be carried out on a smartphone (opens in new tab) or tablet (opens in new tab). IBM Watson Speech to Text (opens in new tab) Microsoft Azure Speech to Text (opens in new tab)ĩ. Click the links below to go to the provider's website:Ģ.

Free voice dictation app for authors