Voice-to-text built into iOS 5

The iOS 5 has loads of cool features ripped-off from its competitors and here’s another one. It’s voice-to-text. As you can see in the screen cap, iOS 5 will allow users to say what they want to type and perhaps even control more advanced functions from their iOS device.

iOS 5 is still in beta and you should expect changes when the final version does come out with this feature. Also, it seems only iPhone and iPod touch will support the feature.

Voice-to-text is a cool feature but it is by no means new. The technology has been around for as long as we can remember and while early iterations of the technology have been laggy, impractical and basically useless, Google with Android have been key in bringing voice recognition to a point where it is now useful.

App developers like Vlingo, with its extensive support in Android, has also pushed the accuracy of voice recognition technology making a feature that was once reserved for geeks and those with patience, appeal to a wider mass audience.

But despite this, voice recognition hasn’t gained much traction. Apple has been known to bring the sexy back into old tech (For example: FaceTime = Video Call). So could voice-to-text come to age with Apple’s support? We certainly hope so. A mass adoption of this matured yet underused feature will push voice-to-text into the limelight and hopefully spur even more innovation for the benefit of us all.

[via]