Siri has advanced voice recognition skills that continue to grow with each release of iOS. This includes the ability to turn spoken punctuation and spacing into the appropriate punctuation in the sentence or paragraph you are dictating. This is really helpful when you are driving and trying to send a text message to someone when the message includes punctuation. It is also helpful when you are dictating a sentence or paragraph for an email or a text document. Instead of stopping every few words to manually type in the punctuation, you can just tell Siri what to put in for you.
Here are some examples:
- Dictate: Text Joe Smith where are you going question mark
- Siri Response: Here’s your message to Joe Smith, Where are you going?
Siri is able to take the phrase “question mark” and automatically insert a ? for you.
Here is another example:
- Dictate: How are you doing today question mark next paragraph I am doing quite well smiley face next paragraph want to grab dinner tonight question mark I hope it works out dot dot dot
- Dictate Results:
How are you doing today?
I am doing quite well 🙂
Want to grab dinner tonight? I hope it works out…
The dictation results turned various verbal punctuation and spacing into actual punctuation and spacing in the text.
Here is a list of additional punctuation and spacing you can use with Siri and Dictation on the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad 3rd gen, iPad 4th gen, iPad Mini, and iPod Touch 5th gen:
- question mark = ?
- exclamation point = !
- dot/point/period = .
- comma = ,
- next line = same as tapping the enter/return key once
- next paragraph = same as tapping the enter/return key twice
- quote/end quote = “”
- cap = capitalize the first letter of the next word
- caps on = capitalize every word in the sentence
- all caps = capitalize every letter in the word
- apostrophe = ‘
- open parenthesis = (
- close parenthesis = )
- dash = –
- dollar sign = $
- smiley face = 🙂
- frowny face = 🙁
Give it a try and see how easy it is to add punctuation and spacing when talking with Siri or using dication. And, if you ever make a mistake in dictation or if Siri misinterprets you, here is a simple way to Edit Mistakes when Using Siri. For additional punctuation and spacing commands see this article from crushapps.com: More Fun with Siri Dictation.
