Speech (or audio) to text apps are becoming increasingly popular and commonplace. Not only is their quality skyrocketing, but they’re being used for just about everything nowadays.
In fact, you might be using a speech to text app or two without even knowing it.
Consider these popular examples that fly under the radar:
- Google Translate gives users the ability to speak directly into the app and have their words translated into another language.
- Nowadays, some customer service solutions use speech to text technology.
- If you use an iPhone, you can dictate text messages by using Siri with nothing more than voice commands.
- Google Docs isn’t only for computer typing It’s also possible to voice type by setting up the function in your Google account.
Taking the above apps and software into account, it’s not immediately clear why speech to text apps are important for industries like content strategy and digital marketing. However, they are for two key reasons.
- Speech to text apps help professionals of all kinds work more efficiently.
- Voice searches and general voice to text functions are becoming more and more widely used. This means that they need to be taken into account when putting together forward-thinking content marketing strategies, and speech to text apps can help with that.
Not only do voice searches have wide-ranging effects on how people search for and interact with content, including keyword search structure, but they’re also skyrocketing in popularity. 40% of adults currently use mobile voice search about once per day, and many experts predict that they’ll eventually take over completely.
Keep reading to find out a little bit more about speech to text technology, why it’s important, and our favorite speech to text apps. This is an exciting new facet of the technological world and it’s sure to have some interesting effects in the years to come.
What is a speech to text app?
A speech to text (or voice to text) app is pretty self-explanatory. Broadly speaking, it’s any kind of program, software or application that allows a user to input audio and have it turned into text. That audio can be an uploaded file, but it can also be someone speaking directly into the app.
The quality of speech to text technology has really improved over the past few years, but also has a long way to go. We’re sure many people have tried speaking into Google Translate only to laugh at the results.
While we’re no longer at that level, you can still rest assured that any speech to text app will present some errors. This is because they use fairly complicated speech recognition software. When a user enters audio into a speech to text app, a computer has to break it down into sounds, analyze them, determine the best words to represent them, and then produce text accordingly.
To add an additional layer of difficulty, remember that most speech to text apps have to work for different languages and respond well to different accents, vocabulary choices, and tonal variations.
Our top speech to text app picks
There are several speech to text apps out there that can be useful for content marketers. In case you’re looking for the right solution for your needs, here are a few of our personal favorites.
1. Happy Scribe
Happy Scribe is our favourite speech to text solution for a reason. Not only is it an all-in-one platform that covers both transcription and subtitling, but it’s also designed for collaboration, doesn’t have any limits on uploads, and is being used by big names like BBC, Spotify, and the United Nations.
Happy Scribe unites the power of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence with the skills of top language professionals.
When it comes to transcription, you’ve got both automatic and 100% human-made options. Once you’ve uploaded your speech or audio files, your transcripts will be delivered to you in between 5 minutes and 24 hours with 85-99% accuracy. Then, you can use their advanced transcription editor to perfect your finished product and share it or export it in mere moments.
Their subtitling services happen very much the same way. They offer both automatic and human-made subtitles with the same turnaround time and overall accuracy. It’s easy to edit your subtitles with their dedicated editor, format them according to your specific needs, and even translate them into different languages.
If you’re interested in giving Happy Scribe a try, their automatic transcription services cost 0.20 EUR per minute, whereas their human-made options are priced at 1.70 EUR per minute. Their subtitling services have the same pricing, depending on whether you want to go with their automatic or human-made option.
2. Google Assistant
Google Assistant is a speech to text (and more) app that comes in handy for pretty much everything. While it’s not specifically designed for transcribing or other professional purposes, it can certainly come in handy when it comes to working efficiently and getting things done. We had to include it on our list purely because of how useful it is.
You can use Google Assistant on a variety of devices, including on your phone, in your car, on your laptop, on your watch, on your TV, and more. And it can do oh so many things! In terms of more traditional speech to text capabilities, it can send emails and messages, manage tasks, search for information on the internet, and add events into your calendar.
Beyond that, here are some of the more unique features that Google Assistant offers:
- Manage tasks and to-do items
- Take notes
- Create custom queries you can go back to time and time again
- Search for and listen to songs
- Play games
- Start timers or set reminders
- Get quick answers or check facts
- Search for and listen to news
- Find local information
- Check weather
- Communicate with others
Best of all, Google Assistant is free. So, if you want to try it out alongside another professional transcribing app, it can’t hurt. If you love it, you can also download other apps to boost its note taking abilities. All you have to do is download the app to get started and you can click here to do so.
3. Dragon Professional
Dragon produces some of the best speech to text solutions out there. Their software helps all kinds of professionals produce accurate, high-quality text using nothing more than their voice and the beauty of AI-powered speech recognition technology.
Dragon is so popular that they’ve got a variety of different software depending on your industry. Here are the different industries they’re currently serving:
- Education
- Start-ups and small businesses
- Financial services
- Healthcare
- Legal
- Law enforcement
- Social services
Dragon software doesn’t come cheap, but you know that you’re getting the best of the best. Pricing varies depending on the specific product you’re interested in, but their Professional Individual V15 software starts at $500 USD. They’ve also got a 30-day money-back guarantee.
4. Speechnotes
Speechnotes is another voice to text app that’s popular with all kinds of professionals. It’s especially ideal because it allows for long recordings and is free to use, making it accessible, effective, and intuitive at the same time.
Speechnotes is perfect for those with a lot to say: bloggers, writers, strategists, content marketers, you name it. It offers continuous, non-stop dictation, meaning that it doesn’t stop recording when you need to take a break or a breather. It also has a built-in keyboard so you can review and edit things like punctuation and industry-specific jargon as you go.
We also love that it’s easy to back up Speechnotes with Google Drive, so you’ll never lose any of your great ideas.
There are only a couple small drawbacks to Speechnotes. First of all, it’s only available on Android and desktop for the time being. If you’re looking for a speech to text app you can use on your iPhone, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
Second of all, the free version of Speechnotes has some in-app advertisements you’ll have to deal with. Nevertheless, you can always upgrade to their premium version and get rid of them if they really bother you.
You can try Speechnotes out for yourself by clicking here.
Discover the power of speech to text for yourself
Speech to text technologies are some of the newest, most dynamic, and fasting-changing innovations of the modern world.
We’ve come a long way with speech to text, but we’ve also got a long way to go. Indeed, while many people use this kind of technology, there are many improvements that need to be made until it becomes as commonplace as the other solutions we’re used to.
Speech to text solutions aren’t just important because they help us do things quickly and efficiently. In the future, they’ll have wide ranging effects on the way we do things and interact with technology more generally.
This article outlined what speech to text technology is and why it’s important. We also provided a list of four helpful speech to text apps that we love to use. If you’re ready to dip your toe into the world of speech to text solutions, try one one out for yourself.
