I was sad to read Erica Sadun’s post at TUAW that iPhone app Air Dictate is being retired early. Air Dictate app pairs with a small piece of software installed on your computer to transcribe Siri dictation onto your Mac. Apparently, some of Air Dictate’s interface violates Apple’s interface rules for apps which caused it to be removed from the App Store.
I applauded Avatron, the Portland developer of Air Dictate back in December, for coming up with an innovative app of interest to lawyers, many of whom dictate. If you got it while it was in the App Store, good for you. It should continue to work. If you didn’t get it, then it looks to be too late. Avatron does not plan to update the app to try and comply with Apple’s rules.
I bet someone else will build an app like this, or already has. Great concept. It’s the only dictation app I use regularly, despite spending hundreds on specialized software and headsets.
Seems the difficulty is that the relies on some trickery to allow the user to invoke dictation without popping up the iPhone’s keyboard (where the dictate button is). Apple says that you can’t use interface elements that might break with an iOS update (i.e., Apple could change where the dictate button appears on the keyboard making Air Dictate not work). If Avatron just allowed the default iPhone keyboard to pop up in order to invoke dictation, the app could be approved.