Larry and I have both had the opportunity to try out an early release of ShapeServices’ upcoming update to iPhone messaging app IM+.

The biggest feature in the next version? The ability to have voice messages transcribed for you within the app itself, for just $.99 a month.

It is a neat trick and a taste of things to come. Let’s take a look…

Once in the app you simply go to settings and tap “More”.

Turn the toggle for Speech Recognition to “ON”. It will ask you to make an in-app purchase of $.99. Once made, you have a month of access to the service.

Now there will be a new microphone icon above the keyboard. Tap it and a recording starts. You have about 15 seconds to speak before being cut off.

After that it sends to voice note to its servers for transcription.

And inputs the text into the reply field for review and sending.

It is a neat trick and one I suspect will be increasingly common.

Here are a few of our thoughts on it-

On the plus side-

Dan-

At $.99 I think this is a good deal. I pay $13 a month for Jott and about $3 for reQall (yes I still use both as they function differently for me). I think this is a great price for voice to text access.

I find the transcriptions to be accurate overall but not as accurate as Jott and reQall’s. The accuracy does depend largely on how quiet your surroundings are and how clearly you speak. It is a learned behavior to be able to speak for high accuracy and it takes time to do it right. (I’m still learning.)

Larry –

After watching the graphic public service announcement we posted on texting while driving I’ve been making a conscious effort to keep my eyes on the road as much as possible.  I’ve been using Jott to send e-mails whenever I can.

This add-on to the already fully functional IM+ is a nice touch.  I love the fact that I can keep in touch with my mouth instead of my fingers.  I do wish they’d make the amount of time one has to record a message longer.  15 seconds goes by really fast.

On the downside-

Dan –

My biggest issue with the set up is that it slows the conversation down significantly. It is one thing for me to create a Jott and have it sent directly to someone. (I do this with my assistant, Larry and others all the time.) It is QUITE ANOTHER to try to have an IM “conversation” but have all the lag time between speaking, processing and then having to MANUALLY hit “send” to send the message.

ShapeService’s implementation here is good… very good. But I’m not sure IM is the best place for speech recognition. Then again, if you do not pay for something like Jott already, this is an inexpensive way to start using Voice To Text.

Larry -

I’m finding the speech to text translation to be fairly accurate.  It does miss key words now and then.  I agree with Dan’s analysis that using this feature does severely slow down the conversation.

I think it’s paramount importance that they get the translation correct.  Having to read back translation for possible errors and even edit them completely defeats the purpose of using voice to text instead of text alone.

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