One Simple Way Apple Watch Addresses The Smartwatch Keyboard Problem

In several key ways, Apple Watch is laying the foundation for the wholesale replacement of our mobile QWERTY experience. In short, it is replacing the keyboard. How it seeks to achieve this is two-fold, and both methods are worthy of careful consideration. For now, however, it’s best to keep things short and sweet in order to share the upshot of the most immediately accessible of the two avenues: dictation.

Bear in mind, I’m not talking about Siri here. She’s the other half of the aforesaid input equation, but she doesn’t figure in this use case. And by “dictation,” I don’t mean “transcription,” either. This isn’t about speech-to-text software or anything exotic like that. Nope, when I say “dictation,” that’s all I’m saying. Literally. Figuratively.

Some time ago, iOS introduced an iMessage feature that allows users to hold down a microphone toggle to record their voices. These snippets are then sent along as audio messages. Since speech recognition on iPhone (and on everything else) is utterly insufficient to account for alphanumeric user names, hashtag searches, and the general hodgpodge of our modern-day abbreviations, acronyms, and catchphrases, the easiest way to convey that stuff is still through a specifically typed-out message or via voice itself. When the former is impossible or impractical, the latter can be a quick, easy solution.

With Apple Watch, you’ve now got a slew of use cases where hands-free — or nearly hands-free — is the chief consideration almost all the time. And since there’s no keyboard available yet (and probably never will be at the stock system level, although I am looking forward to all the third-party text-entry ideas to come), the best course of action is to so simply say your piece.

That said, there are hurdles here, too. You’ve still got to kick off the recording manually, and after every “voice text” you compose, you’re presented with this screen:

Initially, I’d imagined that this would be a frustrating deal-breaker of an addendum, sapping all the convenience of such a messaging system to the point where it couldn’t possibly be worth it. Fortunately, that’s not proving to be the case, and even though I consider my keyboard expertise (snobbery?) to be among my most redeeming qualities, I actually enjoy using this thing on my wrist to send voice notes to other Apple Watch and iOS users. So though this doesn’t solve the problem of filling in text fields and forms on the wearable, it does make lightweight, quick communication a whole lot easier.

Just remember, whatever you say might be played back out loud, so keep it clean.

Of course, if you do end up having to explain yourself, at least now you know there’s an easy way to use Apple Watch to get your argument — or apology — across.