More evidence that Nuance speech-to-text is coming to iPhone this fall in iOS 5

Another screenshot of Apple’s upcoming speech-to-text feature in iOS 5 has surfaced from an Apple employee, reports 9to5mac. The screenshot appears to confirm that the feature, based on speech recognition company Nuance’s technology, is being tested in live internal builds of iOS 5 as we speak.

We originally were tipped to a screenshot of the ‘text-to-speech’ button and evidence of the feature in Apple’s iOS 5 firmware back in July. At that time, the feature was in placeholder status, but this one has been taken on a live device, while the feature was in use. There is no guarantee, of course, that this feature will even make it into iOS 5, but the possibility seems strong that Apple will announce it at an event this fall where it should announce the next version of the iPhone as well.

Just for some background, the night before WWDC we heard from sources very close to the Nuance team involved in integration with iOS 5 and they were absolutely convinced that Apple was going to announce Nuance features built in to iOS during the keynote. That obviously did not happen. We believe that one of the demo sections showing off features of iOS was swapped in at the last minute because the Nuance integration, most likely including this ‘Dictation’ feature, was deemed not ready for public reveal, for whatever reason.

It seems like it is getting closer to a final product now though, and this gives us a more confidence that it will appear this fall when iOS 5 launches, along with other possible features that use voice to help us control and interact with our iDevices.