Things change.  This little change will have big repercussions.

In a remarkable coincidence my old iPhone was dying and going out of contract at the same time.  So I took the easiest path and stopped by the AT&T store nearby and bought the new iPhone 4S.  I was able to transfer my information and upgrade my apps with no difficulty and for a few weeks I really didn’t use the new phone any differently.

“Oh what a tangled web”

But I had SERI in my pocket and I saw the little microphone at the bottom of the memo and email pages so last week I gave it a try.  Conclusion: The new transcription program built into the 4S is incredibly good.

I have been trying to be able to dictate into a machine and have it type a transcript for more than a decade and all of the programs I ever tried were crap.  Now here on my phone is one that works. It means less typing and faster communications.  It also means more messages sent in haste without reflection.  Isn’t technology grand.

Walter Mossberg wrote about it today in his Wall Street Journal article.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303772904577335792574509780.html?KEYWORDS=mossberg

The WSJ is difficult to read if your not a subscriber.  So try both links or do a Google search  if you’re interested.

More importantly see if your phone has speech transcription technology and give it a try.  This btw is another argument for Starbucks to get together with Apple and/or Android and bring the Genius Bar to the Coffee Bar.  To make this kind of change people are going to need a little hands on instruction.