iPhone Dictation / Siri prioritising contact names over obvious sentence context. Is anyone else seeing this?

Thanks very much for your reply. It’s actually really reassuring to hear that someone else is experiencing exactly the same thing, particularly with such an extensive Contacts list. Your “more cookies” → “Moore cookies” example is almost exactly the sort of thing I’ve been experiencing.

I’ve actually made a little bit of progress since posting this. Someone suggested looking at the Siri settings for Contacts, so I went to Settings → Apps → Contacts → Siri and turned “Learn from this App” OFF, leaving the other four settings switched on.

I can’t say it has fixed the problem completely, because it hasn’t. I’m still getting some strange transcription errors, duplicated words and occasional odd substitutions. However, I have noticed a considerable reduction in the number of ordinary words being replaced by names from my Contacts, so it definitely seems to have improved the situation.

For example, I’ve previously had:

• “heard” → “Hurd”

• “not” → “Knott”

• “web” → “Webb”

• “God” → “Goad”

• “right” → “Wright”

• “lie in” → “lion”

• “rustles” → “Russell’s”

I’ve also had words initially transcribed correctly and then visibly changed in front of me, as well as words being duplicated or unexpectedly capitalised.

So seems there really is a very clear interaction between the Contacts database and Dictation. Turning off Learn from this App seems to have reduced the problem, although it hasn’t eliminated it.

It’s also interesting that your experience is with a very extensive Contacts list, because I have over 1,800 contacts, many of them old/historical ones.

Thanks again for replying. It’s genuinely useful to know I’m not the only person seeing this, and your “Moore cookies” example is particularly convincing because it’s exactly the same sort of contextually ridiculous substitution I’ve been getting.

Try this:

Settings → Apps → Contacts → Siri → Learn from this App → OFF

I think I posted this above but not sure if it came in a reply to you hopefully you'll see the update and Apple won't remove it for repetition! 🤞🏻

Update: turning off "learn from this app" seems to have helped significantly. Thank you.

Thanks. I’ve seen a couple of other people reporting the same issue with around 2,000 contacts, whereas someone with under 200 contacts said they couldn’t reproduce it. So there may well be something about the size of the Contacts database involved. It’ll be interesting to see whether turning off “Learn from this app” makes a difference for you with 5,000 contacts.

You, and all the posters with this problem, need to leave feedback for Apple. They don't read posts here and they will only fix things they get a lot of feedback about.

Product Feedback - Apple

If you’re experiencing this too, please consider reporting it to Apple using their Product Feedback page if you've not already done so. Choose the Bug Report option from the drop-down menu and include specific examples of what you dictated versus what appeared on screen, especially if you watched the text change in real time. The more detailed reports Apple receives from different users, the harder it is to dismiss this as an isolated issue. 🤞🏻 for a resolution.

I've had the same problem for many months. I have a very extensive contacts list and it's playing heck with my dictation. I wish there were some way of divorcing my contacts from whatever database they use to transcribe my dictation. (Obvious example: I have several contacts named Moore. Every time I try to type "more cookies" I get "Moore cookies.") I've tried playing with all the keyboard settings, most recently turning off auto capitalization, but nothing works. I wish I had an answer for you but at least you're not alone.

Thanks for the tip. I will

turn off "learn from this app" and maybe it will help. (just a data point: I was a reporter for many years and have a large contacts list - around 5k, many of them also very old. I wonder if a voluminous list is an issue here?)

The dictation-based inadvertent word substitution where Apple grabs contact names and then inserts them as if they are simple nouns is still happening after disabling, Apple Intelligence/Siri and also with a moderate number of contacts (1200) and I do not think Apple gives a Schmitt

I have been noticing this behavior for at least four years. It is getting exponentially worse - I use iOS notes for work and it converts normal words to capitalized celebrity names and cities and countries. But I have *none* of these capitalized names in my contacts - I even took contacts off iCloud on the iPad which I use for work. I even added all the**correct* words to both contacts and the keyboard dictionary. Literally nothing works. There is something completely corrupted - I have tried everything, including turning off AutoCorrect, predictive text, everything. I have tried switching to a different English voice. Nothing. It works. It is in absolutely insane.

Thanks. Yes, Done repeatedly in and also had two long conversations with Apple technical support and repeatedly asked them to escalate. This is not acceptable. I'm not holding my breath, but yes, agree if everyone gives feedback or Logue support calls maybe something will happen. And I'm leaving that typo there for demonstration purpose. I dictated the word "logs" there 😱, and yes, "Logue" is a surname of one of my contacts! 🤬

Thank you for the link - I will try to report this when I have time. One of the reasons I use speech to text as I have an upper extremity disability so even making the report is difficult. But I will try. Here are examples of what happens to be on a continuous basis and it makes me want to scream - especially the relentless conversion of terminology into the name of a rapper! what is wrong with the software that it would default to something like that? Insane.

Hoarseness → Hollis

terminology → Termanology

Fatigue → For Teagan

Or when → Irwin

Not just → Noches

Jawline → John line

has to → Hass to

dermatitis → Derma Titus

daily → Daley

neck → Nick

neuro → Nuro

nodule → Nigel

renal → Reno

A new scar stays pink or red →

A new Scarsdale pink or red

slight ridge → Slate Ridge

cleansing → Clinton

saline → Sealand

fails → Fields

more → Moore

Hello there I just experienced the exact same problem this morning.

• When you go too fast iOS is nosing in the contact folder to replace common names by family names.

• When you go very slow then it works more or less.

• This is totally infuriating.

Beyond, I noticed a degradation of iOS competencies on several aspects: dictation, user interactions (UX), general logic behind technical choices, …. etc

This bad trend is also affecting macOS.

Even on this discussion board I had write again this post three time because the system had unlogged me without my knowledge... this time I copied my message in case.

What global waste of time.

I can relate, because I have recently started dictating emails and texts after breaking my right wrist. My problem isn’t so much that the dictation function “mishears” (e.g., lie in/lion issue) as that it insists on capitalizing words just because they’re in my Contacts. For example, my Contacts include The New York Public Library, the Royal College of Music, and The Metropolitan Opera. So if I dictate a sentence that says, “I went to the library and took out a book about how to write music for opera”, Apple would write it as, “I went to the Library and took out a book about how to write Music for Opera”. Apparently the only way I can change this is to go into my Contacts and change all those words to lower case (which would be a pain in the neck). Infuriating, and idiotic. But thanks to your comment, at least I know what’s causing the problem.

Thank you for sharing these examples. Some of those substitutions are absolutely extraordinary! I can understand why it’s so frustrating, particularly when you’re relying on speech-to-text for accessibility.

The terminology examples are especially interesting because they’re replacing perfectly ordinary words with names that make no sense in the context.

Out of interest, roughly how many contacts do you have saved on your device? I’m trying to establish whether the size of the Contacts database might be a factor, although I’m increasingly wondering whether there are several issues at play.

Be great if you are able to submit that feedback if it's manageable, those examples are (hopefully!) the sort of specific evidence that could help Apple fix the problem!

You can let Apple know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

I have the same problem with things like the word Travel being capitalized because I have a contact for Travel, as well as things like Appel for apple. Datapoint: I have 4,052 contacts.

Yes! It happens all day long. Just now it corrected cat to Kat. It's happening with my macOS and iOS. Who thought this was a good idea?????

Thanks. This is exactly what I’m seeing too! I’ve found dozens of examples where a completely ordinary word is replaced by a surname or proper name that happens to be in my Contacts — e.g. “heard” → “Hurd”, “beach” → “Bech”, “not” → “Knott”, “line” → “Lyne”. I’ve also noticed words changing on screen after they initially appear correctly. Really interesting that you’ve found speaking more slowly reduces it — I’ll have to pay attention to that.

I spend a lot of time online being sarcastic about politicians. One of my favorite words, which tbh I probably overuse, is reliably and relentlessly transcribed as Ludacris. It drives me up the wall. (And I don't have a contact under that name.)

Ironically, I do a lot of baking and Apple is one of the words that’s always mistakenly capitalized when I write notes. (When it’s not Appel, the name of a colleague in my contacts.)