Dictator Android 4 Beta

Dictator Android 4 edition is currently in beta, join our Google Group for access.  You must have already purchased it.

Smaller

The plan to Cut the Cruft is still holding firm!  We are bent on delivering a much smaller, more-focused dictation experience.

Features

The upcoming push has a new-and-improved Shake-to-Start implementation, and shaking will work in more places throughout the app, e.g. shake to cancel while Speech is active.

The Settings are revamped; many “main” settings are now “global”, and some other settings are completely removed.

A new feature is Dictator now checks the Ringer Mode, and won’t perform any audio functions if it is Vibrate or Silent mode.  The new Ignore Ringer Mode setting can override this behavior.

Phone Search Gankery

On new versions of Android 4 like KitKat, the Quick Search Bar no longer scans the system for “searchable” apps, other than a pre-approved set of “inernal” apps, like Contacts.  This is very unfortunate, for Dictator and many other apps that relied on this feature to surface information.

We have added the system Search Widget to the Action Bar, so you can search within Dictator itself.

Out for Now

Anyone relying on the Audio Capture feature will have to bear with us for a couple updates; that feature is not making it into the initial go-live version.  As mentioned in previous posts, this was not supported well by device makers, and the app now defaults to a state where it assumes that is not present.