Open Radar

 
Summary:
With the advent of "Hey Siri" on my iPhone 6s, and improved Siri in WatchOS 2.0, I find myself dictating many more iMessages that ever before. The feature is great, and Siri text responses are very accurate, seemingly 90-95% accurate in my daily use.

But when the voice recognition/dictation fails, it fails significantly. Messages that are misheard due to a noisy room or due to a mispronunciation are often significantly far from their intended text.

These dictation errors, even today, make it difficult to use Siri reliably and with complete trust. In situations where I can not visually verify that the dictation was correct (when driving and using my hands-free bluetooth system, preoccupied and hands are full, standing away from iPhone and using Hey Siri), I am extremely hesitant to use dictation, as an incorrect interpretation can be extremely wrong/misleading, make me look as if I have a poor grasp of the english language, or worse, these texts could even be offensive. 

I'm a native-English speaking male who was born and raised in the midwest of the united states, with no discernible accent. Presumably, I'm in a voice pattern/group that is the most accurate and highly tested from the dictation engine. If i have these issues, it certainly is a bigger issue among speakers of other languages, or who are speaking in a second tongue, etc.

To combat this, I would suggest including a small glyph of a microphone to iMessages that have been composed completely or even in part, using either Siri or the voice dictation feature. I propose that this glyph be features and look similar to the play button for voice memos sent via iMessage.

I've included a Photoshopped example of how this could look. With this system, the receiving user would be able to clearly see that the message was dictated. This would make the recipient more likely to openly interpret or question a message that appears incorrect. It would also be a small social cue that any obviously offensive or wrong message was simply a mistake in dictation. Obviously, this can look bad on Siri and it's technology, but I believe most users are aware of the constraints of voice dictation today and if they use Siri at all on their iOS device, this will be clear to them. Additionally, it may actually reinforce the value of Siri and lead to greater use of dictation by all users, increasing customer satisfaction of iOS, as users see how many messages that they receive were the result of a successful dictation.

Steps to Reproduce:
Nothing exceptional or notable as of 10/15/2015. Will update radar if this changes.

Expected Results:
iMessages composed completely or partially using Siri/dictation would include a small glyph to indicate voice dictation was used to create the message.

Actual Results:
I often egg freckles all over and embarrass myself.

Regression:
Nothing exceptional or notable as of 10/15/2015. Will update radar if this changes.

Notes:
Nothing exceptional or notable as of 10/15/2015. Will update radar if this changes.