Dictation is great, everyone should use it more. It saves time. But there’s one problem. I see more and more text fields gaining a dedicated microphone button.

  • iOS search field
  • iOS Safari search/location bar
  • iOS 16 Messages input field, rdar://11455506

The standard iOS keyboard has a mic button already and it drives me bonkers seeing 2 buttons on the same screen. It’s disrespectful to users’ screen space. It also can seed an assumption that dictation only works in fields with a dictation button. I would expect it from a company where different permanent teams for keyboards and other apps. Is this a collaboration issue? What are Apple designers thinking?

  • Do they want to save users a tap? Fine, just remove the second button when the keyboard is present.
  • Do they think you can dictate a message without using a keyboard? That’s very rarely the case.

Remove it, just remove it. This is spreading to other apps as well. I see designers adding text fields in their mocks and they already have a mic button in their text field widgets.