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First look: Dragon Dictation

If you're sick of typing on your iPhone keyboard, Dragon Dictation should be the next app you install on your phone.

Joseph Hanlon Special to CNET News
Joe capitalises on a life-long love of blinking lights and upbeat MIDI soundtracks covering the latest developments in smartphones and tablet computers. When not ruining his eyesight staring at small screens, Joe ruins his eyesight playing video games and watching movies.
Joseph Hanlon

Here's an app we've been waiting a while to get our bronzed Aussie hands on.

Digital linguistics experts Nuance has finally delivered its Dragon Dictation and Dragon Search apps for iOS to the Australian Apple App Store. Released in the US nearly exactly a year ago, Dragon Dictation transcribes your speech into text, then allows you to use this text in a number of key apps. From the apps menu you can post directly to Twitter and Facebook, populate the composition field of an SMS or email, or you can just copy and paste it into any other app you like.

The app captures short clips of audio then sends these sound files to a Nuance-hosted server. The audio is transcribed and redelivered over 3G or Wi-Fi. While there is a 60-second limit on each recording, users can record numerous clips to create one single message. In fact, a spokesperson from Nuance told us that short clips (ie, one sentence each) should be used for the best and fastest results.

Both Dragon Dictation and Dragon Search are available now for free via iTunes.