A screenshot has been found in the latest iOS 5 beta 5 release which again reveals that text to speech may be coming in the final version of iOS 5. Last month we saw some screenshots of a settings screen which allowed you to turn the voice assistant on and off. Now we have another screenshot showing how to activate the speech-to-text from within an app.

Looking at the screenshot, it couldn’t be much simpler. On the keyboard is a microphone icon, click on that and a second screen appears. This allows you to talk into the phone; the voice is then translated to written text and inserted into the text field. According to the same source, this speech to text will only be available for the iPhone and iPod touch. Of course this is a beta we are talking about and things change all the time prior to final release.

This could be a really killer feature of iOS 5; when it is launched in the fall. I would like to see a way of talking to your iPhone without the need to press any buttons. It has been done before by the use of a magic word. You set up one specific word to wake up the phone. The downside is battery life; the iPhone would need to be in a listening state all the time, which would suck up your battery.

[9to5 Mac]

Like an old episode of Star Trek, Apple patents provide us with a look at many possible futures for the iPhone, some of which -- but not all of which -- may one day be ours. Cases in point, AppleInsider rounds up the latest batch from Cupertino:

• Location-based home screen means a user would be presented with a dynamically generated Home Screen based on factors such as location (get off the plane, automagically be presented with local weather, maps, contacts, etc.)

• Speech-to-text would take what you say into the iPhone and transcribe it into editable text (similar to what many 3rd party apps offer now).

• Image transportation, where picture are automagically scaled and sent for display on a TV or similar external monitor.

• Event-based contact lists, hosted server-side, that would allow access for event participants.

• In-call file transfer would let users share a file with someone they're already talking to on the phone.

Yeah, iPhone 4.0 is coming when again?