Fact · Dictation
52words per minute
In the same controlled study on an iPhone, English text entered on the built-in QWERTY keyboard reached 52 words per minute, against 153 words per minute by speech.
Checked against its source on October 16, 2026
In the source's own words
“the English input rate was 2.93 times faster (153 vs. 52 WPM)”
Comparing Speech and Keyboard Text Entry for Short Messages in Two Languages on Touchscreen Phones, Sherry Ruan et al., Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), 2018, Abstract.
Open the original (DOI 10.1145/3161187)- What it measures
- Participants transcribed short messages on an iPhone, once with speech recognition and once with the built-in QWERTY keyboard. The speed counts the finished text, including time spent correcting errors.
- What it does not show
- Short messages in a laboratory, not long documents. The study used a 2016 recognizer and the iOS keyboard of that time, so current devices may differ.
Source
Used to calculate
- At the study's 153 words per minute by speech and 52 on the keyboard, a 1,000-word draft takes about 6.5 minutes spoken and 19.2 minutes typed, a saving of about 12.7 minutes.
- When the same text is entered, speech at 153 words per minute takes about two-thirds less time than typing at 52 words per minute. Both rates include correcting errors during entry, so the saving does not include editing the draft afterwards.
- A day of email replies totaling 1,200 words takes about 23.1 minutes to type at 52 words per minute, the phone keyboard speed in the Ruan study.
- At 52 words per minute, the English keyboard speed measured on an iPhone, 1,000 words take about 19.2 minutes to type.
- At the study's speeds, 100 words take about 1.9 minutes to type on the phone keyboard and about 0.65 minutes to speak, so speech saves about 1.3 minutes per 100 words before any editing.
- Ten hours of keyboard writing at 52 words per minute would take about 3.4 hours to enter by speech at 153 words per minute, before editing.
- At 52 words per minute on the keyboard and 153 by speech, ten hours of keyboard drafting produce the same words in about 3.4 hours of speaking, before any editing time.
- At the entry speeds in the phone study, typing 1,000 words on the built-in keyboard takes about 12.7 minutes longer than speaking them, before any editing.
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