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Writer's pictureMac McAhren

Quick Tip - It’s Time to Try Dictation in iOS 16 and iPadOS 16



Apple has long provided a microphone button in the keyboard to invoke dictation on the iPhone and iPad. But, it wasn’t always easy to hit, and you had to switch back to the keyboard to fix the inevitable mistakes. (Apple’s dictation is a huge timesaver but far from perfect, particularly with homonyms and proper nouns.) With iOS 16 and iPadOS 16, Apple made the microphone button larger and repositioned it to make it easier to tap. The keyboard remains available while dictation is active, enabling you to work with text manually during dictation. You can correct mistakes, reposition the insertion point, select and delete text, fix spelling, and so on. For instance, if dictation inserts the wrong word, double-tap the word to select it and speak the replacement. Or, if you want to add something, tap in the text to move the insertion point and start speaking again. Dictation can even add punctuation for you, but it’s a little haphazard at that, so you might disable that option in Settings > General > Keyboard.


(Featured image by iStock.com/fizkes)

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