iOS voice-to-text feature still unable to recognize question mark & other punctuation marks (workaround inside)

Ever since iOS was released in 2007, the operating system has been praised by both critiques and users alike for its design language and UI. Just four years later, Apple introduced a virtual assistant called Siri.

Users can either use gestures or voice and command Siri to perform several tasks such as answering questions, playing videos, or even typing out entire messages using voice-to-text.

Back then, users noticed that Siri could do handle queries and do several things quite well but one thing that the voice assistant couldn’t do was identify punctuation marks when using voice-to-text.

A decade later, it looks like iOS users are still reporting that the voice-to-text feature is unable to recognize when a question mark or other punctuation marks are needed.

While it was acceptable back in 2011 since voice recognition was new, many are wondering why Apple hasn’t been able to work on the feature ten years down the line.

Honestly, this is quite frustrating since punctuation marks are an important part of a text and their absence could change the meaning of the text. You can see an example of the same in the image below.

I came from Android, and while almost everything else is better about iOS, the voice-to-text feature is so far inferior to Android that it’s astounding. If you haven’t been on Android before, the Google Assistant knows any punctuation that is needed without you saying it. Question marks, periods, commas, everything.I know that sometimes Apple’s defense is that they use on-device processing (whereas Google sends all your data to the cloud to analyze it, so of course Google can do more).
(Source)

They went on to say,

Ok, fair. I don’t expect Siri to recognize every voice intonation. But there are certain phrases in the English language that automatically mean that the sentence is going to be a question. For example, “do you” starting a sentence means it is going to be a question. How hard is that to code into iOS? I don’t understand.
(Source)

As it turns out, there was a workaround shared by CNET back when Siri was launched that still seems to be working to date. It involves speaking the punctuation marks and question marks so Siri can understand it.

You can watch the video below to see how to do so.

We hope Apple adds the ability to automatically detect punctuation marks and question marks in the near future so users don’t have to manually add them. When they do, we will let you know so stay tuned for updates.

Note: We have more such stories in our dedicated Apple Section so be sure to follow them as well.

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.