How can I use Apple voice recognition for good?
 

I discovered Otter, a dictation app, when I finished my Bachelor's in 2014, and until I can finally get reevaluated for ADHD, I need all the help that I can get.

Otter isn't necessarily considered the best, and if you pay, you still quickly run out of time.

I couldn't find any information, but apparently you need to pay more for something like attending school full-time.

If you used this for a full-time job I believe that you would need to pay for the double-plus-good version, and I don't even want to know how much that would cost.

Apple's voice recognition is considered among the best, if not the best, and it comes free on all Apple products--except apparently mine is too old.

I think that my iPad has 12.5.7 and I cannot figure out how to turn it on.

Mom says that I can try to get it to work on the iPhone or one of the iPads that I bought her.

Can I buy a refurbished iPhone and have it dictate to iWork and if so, how new would the iPhone need to be?

Why not step up and get a real computer? I like the Mini -- no camera or microphone unless one is plugged in.

I tried to force myself to use Siri, and gave up. It's been a few years so maybe I should try it again. At the time, I feel like it would get maybe 10% of my dictation wrong.

All that said, I can type at least as fast as I can think. If I'm not thinking, I can type much faster. The correct tool for efficiently writing is a keyboard.

Tell me more about that diagnosis, as that's something I've been threatening to address too. I'm quite pessimistic much can be done, as fundamentally rewiring a 40 year old brain is no simple matter, but perhaps there are strategies to leverage the positive aspects of my attention.

Diagnosis??

Hero-dosing LSD will re-jigger the wires.

I misunderstood the question -- not voice recognition but speech-to-text.
IIRC (on my M1 Mini) there is a download so it can work offline.

Yes, let me bring in a mini each day to record lectures.

I will plug a big and fancy microphone into it!I have been amazed when my sister does text-to-speak with her iPhone. It gets a few things wrong, but she can tell it to correct it, and then tell it to send.

I dictate on my Samsung and it is hit-or-miss.

I feel that it is more distracting than texting and I am unsure that I can currently have it read my messages out loud, but maybe I finally made that work.

The last few times I tried it said it didn't have permission.

I said "I give you permission!"

Of course, it wasn't that easy.

If I told it to correct anything it would write out my instructions.

It usually writes out the specified punctuation instead of actually inserting it.When I bought my first laptop, two professors told me to put it away, and in 2006 I was just writing notes.

One professor ranted about politics that had nothing to do with Mexican literature from the 1900s, so I typed up the materials she gave us, which were scans of stories that had been photocopied far too many times.

However, I brought my laptop to physics, and immediately gave up.

A notepad and pencil were the correct tools.Drugs.

Everyone told me [condescendingly]"They don't accommodate for ADHD in grad school! They don't provide notetakers!"
Their website says they totally accommodate, including providing notetakers, I just need a current evaluation.

You don't record lectures, you read the text while they drone on in class.

100% of my dictation ends in me cursing Siri out for being less than useless.

...which is why you read the text, the material that was edited many times to be as good as it can become, vs someone talking. I don't understand the purpose of a person talking in a classroom of many people, to the dumbest one there.

I can't read my own writing. I have to ask my professor what I wrote.

What's a notetaker? Professors should have a link to their slide-deck online. If you're taking notes, you're not listening. If you're listening, you're not reading the text.

Once I had a diagnosis, ASU gave me a notetaker, but there were always things the professor said in class that wasn't in the provided notes or in the textbook, but were on the test.

Slides are merely an outline.

Everyone hates my handwriting and I exasperatedly ask "Why did you refuse to let me do this electronically?!"
"Just write slower!"
"Do you see how slow I am writing?!"

I have never asked someone what I wrote, but my then best friend, who had always been a big sci fi reader, became interested in fantasy, and when I met a lady who was a big fantasy fan, he asked me to ask her for recommendations.

I recorded a voice memo, listened to it once in Bookman's, and said "I'm sorry, I don't have any idea what I said."
"I have experience listening to you."
He understood everything! :D

I have had hand and wrist problems since I graduated from high school and it was so bad when I started college that all that I did each morning was get dressed and use my computer with a long-handled wooden spoon in my mouth.

I paid $500 to upgrade my computer to run Dragon Naturally Speaking and my sister came over one day and asked "Why don't you just enunciate?!"

I try, boy do I try, and as a speech therapist, it is infuriating that I mumble and stutter.

I'm trying, I'm trying!

You read the text BEFORE class. In class you listen to the professor to see if they answer any questions you had from reading ahead of time and to see what part of the text they care about. That is what you take notes about. If they don't answer your questions in the lecture you ask them either in class or during office hours. Then you review the text and your notes again

Attending school full time is a full time job - full time grad school is a 50 - 60 hour a week job. Most of the work happens outside of class not the 12 - 15 hours a week spent in class.

This adds a whole new dimension to the story. Physician heal thine own eye with a log in it.

Mom and my wife agreed to sign up for one Verizon account to rule all of them.
 

I know that people insist you need to change Internet and cellular providers every year so they give you a discount, but my wife hasn't liked Tmobile, and it doesn't do much in Show Low.

I have gotten my sister a military discount for at least 16 years, which seems like plenty, but of course, I never had the time to take Mom and my wife to Verizon, and then they convinced her to turn in her old iPhone for a 16.

Her old iPhone worked fine and now I can't add her to my account.

Can my wife and I join hers and have Mom make me the administrator or whatever?

I thought that if nothing else, at least I had an "old" iPhone--way newer than my wife's.

I have long wished that I could take voice notes while driving between clients--on top of texting as easily as my sister does.

A while ago, Google asked if I wanted to upgrade my phone to Gemini, I could reverse it if I wanted.

I used Gemini regularly through the web, but it kept telling me it couldn't help me on my phone, so I uninstalled it, but just figured out how to reenable Google's assistant.

I needed to reinstall Gemini to reactivate Google so it could disable it, but I was finally able to reenable it.

I just didn't know what assistant I had before.

The Internet said Bixby, but it didn't work--and now I can't uninstall it.

I switched from Google Pixels to an iPhone last week. (Pixel 9 pro to iPhone 14 pro)

Early experience with text to speech with an iPhone:

Notes accurately translates my speech to a note. It cannot be used to record other audio like a lecutre.

Voice Memo will accurately record my TV without errors - if it is close to the TV. Across the room it is maybe 90 - 95% accurate. It likely would work for a lecture with an external microphone. Voice memo works on phones back to the iPhone 5S. (IOS 10 or later)



Personally I used various prepaid plans and have used most of them over the years. More recently I've used Cricket (AT&T), Mint (T-Mobile), and now Visible (Verizon). My 1 year special rate was about to expire so I signed up with a new email / phone number last week. They had a deal that if you purchased a used phone from their partner site (Back Market) you got their $45 a month Visible + unlimited plan for $30 a month for 3 years.

So that is what I did as there really was no risk since the phone has a 30 day return window. The used phone was good. Iphone 14 Pro 1 Tb of memory for $530 ("excellent" condition rating). Not bad for a 2 year old phone that original sold for $1500. The 1TB is excessive but it was on sale and cheaper than the 512 version if I went with the "deep purple" color. Should be good for 4 years before needing a replacement do to IOS support ending.