Can anyone steer me toward an app or website that can help me dictate long writing passages on the iPad?
I’ve tried the Google Docs app (in conjunction with the GBoard), but it captures my speech and returns me to keyboard mode after a couple sentences. Also, it doesn’t seem to support editing functions like deleting words with voice.
I’d really like to get to Google Docs via a web browser, as I understand that version does support detailed editing and maybe doesn’t kick you out of voice mode immediately. But when I try to get to it via Chrome for iPad or Safari, the iPad automatically opens the Google Docs app.
Is there another solution? I see there’s a Dragon for iPad, but it’s expensive, and I’m more impressed with Google’s accuracy than I was with Dragon last time I used it. Then again, Dragon may have improved.
Never tried this, but have you thought about recording and then using google docs to transcribe the recording? It may not be any better.
I also see that Dragon for IOS has a one week free trial and a $15/month subscription. You could give the free trial a while and it works the $15/month might be palatable if your project can be finished in a few months.
Thanks for taking the time to reply, Mark. That’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll try it. Actually, I just tried a variant of it. There’s a transcription app named Otter that lets you record long passages and transcribes more or less as you go. It gives you 600 hours free a month, which is enough to get me started. (More hours than that entail a fee, but it’s still not as pricy as Dragon.) It does a remarkably good job of transcribing.
I thought I’d miss Dragon’s voice-edit features, but simply recording on the fly might make for better brainstorming. Instead of getting caught up in edits, I just kept going, and after 15 minutes of talking I had 2-3 pages of reasonably well-formatted text. By default, the app assumes you’re recording a conversation, so it breaks things down into paragraphs by speaker, with timestamps and speaker names. But you can suppress the timestamps and names, and I ended up with paragraphs whose boundaries were defined by the length of my pauses. It’s surprisingly natural.
I’m going to play with Otter more tonight. Maybe I’ll try your suggestion as well – a recording app followed by Google Docs transcription. Thanks again.
