For years, voice transcription technology has been available but terrible. Unless you talked like a robot, the typed result looked nothing like what you said. Now there’s a new round of services for those who are better at talking with your mouth rather than your thumbs, and they’ve gotten a lot better. Here are our six faves.
Dragon Dictation (iPhone)
This new transcription app has been slobberingly adored by Mashable, The New York Times, and the rest of the web. It’s free for a limited time only, and does a mighty fine job. Once you’ve spoken, you can save the text in an email, SMS or onto your clipboard. The basic design is very user-friendly, and the price is right.
QuickVoice (iPhone)
This one costs $0.99 and doesn’t let you email your notes out of your iPhone, but it does have a handy “pause” feature that allows you to take a little break without having to start a new file.
MyCaption (Blackberry)
This is a useful app for the Blackberry, but don’t let the $1.99 download price fool you. They have a slate of complicated and expensive plans for emailing the transcriptions out of your device that should make you wary.
