If you ever wanted to send text messages with weird punctuation like someone who is new to thumb-typing, Google’s voice-to-text settings were able to do it for you, Android Police reported.
Google’s voice typing used to only add punctuation when the speaker asked for it specifically (by saying “comma” or “period,” etc.), but after an update last month, the app started adding punctuation automatically. And judging by the 400-plus comments on a support forum post, it was not working well.
A Google spokesperson now tells The Verge that “we were able to identify the issue and pushed out a fix over the weekend that will be rolling out to all users over the next few days.”
The complaints indicate that if you paused too long while speaking into your phone, you may end up with a random period in the middle of a sentence or weird capitalization when the app thinks you’re starting a new sentence. An example from the support forum:
The same thing is happening to me and it is so annoying! I use Voice to Text due to a disability. And it keeps putting in punctuation. Where I don’t want it. Google please fix. This
Gboard dictation didn’t appear to be affected, Android Police found. The “fix” seems to be confined to Google’s voice typing mode, which doesn’t have an on-screen keyboard connected to it.
You can’t turn off the automatically added punctuation. But if you’re really determined to kill this feature before the updates roll out, there is a workaround: uninstall all updates for the Google app on your phone. Which isn’t. Very. Convenient but at least. Your sentences won’t look Like. This.
Update February 10th, 2:11 PM ET: Google says a fix for the punctuation problem is on the way.