Fresh from the release of iOS 5’s fourth beta came news that there are references to unannounced voice recognition technology. When we wrote about this new development yesterday, speculation was that a Siri Assistant-like feature would be coming to iOS.
Now it seems there may be more to this ‘talking to your iPhone’ thing than we first thought, with 9to5Mac finding yet more code, this time pointing to integrated Nuance Dictation.
The code, discovered in the latest iOS 5 SDK, would bring Android-like text dictation to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. That is, if it makes its way into a final release of the OS…
9to5Mac’s findings suggest that the new feature would give users the option of pressing a button on the virtual keyboard, and then speaking into the device’s microphone. This voice input could then be converted into text using Nuance’s software.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because Google has been doing this with Android for some time now.
The code, discovered in iOS 5 Beta 4, also gives the impression that the software may detect when a voice input is complete, removing the need to tap the screen when the user has finished speaking. Great for in-car use, for example.
This isn’t the first time Nuance has been claimed to have a finger in the iOS pie— the Nuance team were rumored to put in an appearance during Apple’s WWDC keynote, but that did not come to fruition.
It is also unknown whether any potential new dictation feature would be available on all iOS hardware from the start, with the possibility that Apple may restrict its use to the latest and greatest devices.
iPhone 5, perhaps?