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iOS Dictation - Can’t Access Blue Underlined Suggestions

F

fronesis

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 1, 2012
105
59
When using voice dictation in iOS, words or phrases that the system is unsure about appear underlined in blue. After dictating, the user can then tap on those words or phrases and a number of suggestions will appear as alternatives to what you were saying. This is how dictation has worked for a long time, and it still s appears to work this way in iOS 11.

The problem for me is that on both my iPad 10.5 and my iPhone X, each running the latest iOS, those blue underlined words or phrases are not selectable. They appear as usual, but when you tap on them - or when you TRY to tap on them - you just get a cursor insertion point, or you get the regular pop up menu that shows up in iOS text editing apps.

I’m having this problem in all Apple apps - Notes, Pages, Mail. I am NOT having the problem in PDF Expert.

I’ve reset the iPad. And I’ve trapped tapping/selecting in very way imaginable.

Anyone have any ideas???

EDIT: Just discovered that the suggestions work fine in Messages. So it is something about the menus that come in text editing situations - those menus are blocking the dictation menu.
 
180 views but still no replies.

Can someone at least see if they can replicate this issue?
 
Could be a bug in that the menu (with the option to select) doesn't always come up on the first tap. But, long-pressing seems to work, selecting the word AND showing the menu.
 
Thanks, everyone for the replies.

It is definitely not a feature of PDF Expert but of iOS. It actually works fine in the Messages app. But it will not work in any Apple app that has text editing features.

In those apps I’m getting the blue underlined after dictating, but no matter how I press – short, long, hard – it never works

I know it used to work in other apps including Pages and Mail because I used it all the time. And the fact that the blue underlining showing up makes me think this is definitely a bug not a change to the iOS.

I suppose I can file a bug report with Apple, I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t only me.
 
I agree that this has to do with the new Apple markup features. My Notes app has notes hosted both in Gmail and iCloud. When I dictate in a note on my Gmail account I get tappable suggestions as usual. But notes on my iCloud account are not tappable, despite phrases getting blue underlines. My obvious solution was to avoid using iCloud notes. Seems a shame, though. Sometimes it makes me wonder if Apple's software designers even use iPhones.
 
fronesis said:
180 views but still no replies.

Can someone at least see if they can replicate this issue?
Click to expand...

I have the same problem, but it is limited to the iOS Notes app. Messages, the reminder app, various email apps, e.g. outlook and Apple iOS mail, work fine. OneNote also works fine.

I dictate text on my phone via Siri during my two hour commute every day and throughout the day with reminders, Draft emails, etc.

In fact I dictated this posting and was able to to pull up suggestions for blue underlined text.

I have replicated this problem on my iPhone X, my iPad Pro, and my one year-old iPad - All running the most recent iOS release.
 
gnomeisland said:
I’m now noticing this problem on my 2018 iPad Pro running iPadOS 13. Any solutions?
Click to expand...

This issue has been an on-and-off again problem for me over the past several months… especially in Messages. As an aside, a similar occurrence (with red dotted underline) occurred within this post and I was able to easily tap and correct it. The issue for me seems primarily within Apple applications. [iPad Air 3 and iPhone 7 both running 14.0.1]
 
Dee1jay said:
This issue has been an on-and-off again problem for me over the past several months… especially in Messages. As an aside, a similar occurrence (with red dotted underline) occurred within this post and I was able to easily tap and correct it. The issue for me seems primarily within Apple applications. [iPad Air 3 and iPhone 7 both running 14.0.1]
Click to expand...
I’ve been able to replicate the issue. device #1 iPhone X iOS 14.1 - device #2 iPhone 12 Pro iOS 14.2
device 1 - get the blue line, taping does NOT bring up anything, double tap brings up the menu, hit replace and there are the suggestion.
device 2 - get the blue line, single tap does bring up the suggestion right away.
im updating the device 1 to iOS 14.2 to see if it changes anything, will post the results here
 
Hometechsupport said:
I’ve been able to replicate the issue. device #1 iPhone X iOS 14.1 - device #2 iPhone 12 Pro iOS 14.2
device 1 - get the blue line, taping does NOT bring up anything, double tap brings up the menu, hit replace and there are the suggestion.
device 2 - get the blue line, single tap does bring up the suggestion right away.
im updating the device 1 to iOS 14.2 to see if it changes anything, will post the results here
Click to expand...
I’ve now updated to iOS 14.2. Checked Messages for this issue and I am now able to tap the blue-underlined items to get a replacement option. Not sure if this functionality will last. (As another aside, battery life continues to take a hit with 14.2. Sad.)
 
Dee1jay said:
I’ve now updated to iOS 14.2. Checked Messages for this issue and I am now able to tap the blue-underlined items to get a replacement option. Not sure if this functionality will last. (As another aside, battery life continues to take a hit with 14.2. Sad.)
Click to expand...
Hometechsupport said:
I’ve been able to replicate the issue. device #1 iPhone X iOS 14.1 - device #2 iPhone 12 Pro iOS 14.2
device 1 - get the blue line, taping does NOT bring up anything, double tap brings up the menu, hit replace and there are the suggestion.
device 2 - get the blue line, single tap does bring up the suggestion right away.
im updating the device 1 to iOS 14.2 to see if it changes anything, will post the results here
Click to expand...
I’ve updated device 1 to iOS 14.2 issue is resolved as per Dee1jay
 
Wow I didn’t expect to find a two year old thread about my exact problem when trying to find more info about it. Seeing this thread kinda makes me lose a little hope of this ever getting fixed.

But at least I know I’m not going mad and the blue underline is intended for what I think it’s for.
 
Tapoma said:
Wow I didn’t expect to find a two year old thread about my exact problem when trying to find more info about it. Seeing this thread kinda makes me lose a little hope of this ever getting fixed.

But at least I know I’m not going mad and the blue underline is intended for what I think it’s for.
Click to expand...
Haha.

I can't agree more.

I've had this issue in multiple apps over multiple iOS versions and it's been doing my head in!

I'm on iOS 14.1 so will update soon and see if that fixes the issue as it has for others.

I assume someone on here has registered the issue on the Apple forum? Have Apple replied?

Thanks!
 
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