Email and mobile are wonderful things, but bashing out a memo on a smartphone keyboard can be some people's version of Dante's inferno.

Fortunately the dramatically named yet divinely useful (and free) app Dragon Dictation makes note taking as easy as saying one-two-three.

Speak up

The iPad app is an extension of Dragon Dictate, the world's best selling voice recognition software.

While voice recognition has in the past attracted (somewhat justified) criticism, Dragon Dictate seems to have ironed out lots of the bugs.

Voice of reason

The app responds best when you speak naturally, so no more robotic voice commands. 

Dragon Dictate's interface learns quickly from mistakes and picks up on your personal conversational quirks. The more you use it, the smarter the app gets.

It's worth noting Dragon Dictate doesn't do punctuation, meaning you have to verbalise commands like 'full stop” and “comma”.

While this was a little clumsy at first, we soon got used to the process.

Sharing

Once you've completed your dictation you can then edit it via a virtual keyboard. 

You're then free to send your musings via email, post an update to Facebook or Twitter, send an SMS or copy your notes to the clipboard.

Cloud talk

We found Dragon Dictate accurate when dictating reasonably complex emails and responses. It flubbed a bit on more unusual or non-English words, and didn't have  great grasp of jargon.

The other issue is that Dragon Dictate works in the cloud, so you must be online to use the app. We didn't find this a problem but can see how it would present issues, especially when travelling. 

But it's also a lot of fun, and free. Definitely worth a look.

To find out more visit itunes.apple.com/au. 

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