[ios] Speech input for visually impaired users without the need to tap the screen

We're working on a app for blind and visually impaired users. We've been experimenting with a third party library to get spoken user input and convert it to text, which we then parse as commands to control the app. The problem is that the word recognition is not very good and certainly not anywhere near as good as what iOS uses to get voice input on a text field.

I'd like to experiment with that, but our users are mostly unable to tap a text field, then hit the mic button on the popup keyboard, then hit the done button or even dismiss any of it. I'm not even sure how they can deal with a single tap on the whole screen, it might be too difficult for some. So, I'd like to automate that for them, but I don't see anything in the docs that indicates it is possible. So, is it even possible, and if so, what's the proper way to do it so that it passes verification?

This question is related to ios accessibility speech-to-text

The answer is


The only way to get the iOS dictation is to sign up yourself through Nuance: http://dragonmobile.nuancemobiledeveloper.com/ - it's expensive, because it's the best. Presumably, Apple's contract prevents them from exposing an API.

The built in iOS accessibility features allow immobilized users to access dictation (and other keyboard buttons) through tools like VoiceOver and Assistive Touch. It may not be worth reinventing this if your users might be familiar with these tools.