Talk of vastly improved iOS voice control features has been around since Apple bought Siri in April 2010 and iOS 5 is increasingly looking like the update that will deliver them. Reports last month suggested we’ll see Siri’s artificial intelligence skills baked into a new iOS 5 feature called Assistant, now screenshots have emerged purporting to show how the speech-to-text function will work.

9to5Mac claims to have got the grabs from a reliable source. It shows a new microphone icon on the keyboard which will activate speech recognition with a microphone overlay appearing while you’re talking, just as it does with current iOS voice control features. Interestingly, the source claims Apple will only bring the speech-to-text feature to the iPhone and iPod touch initially. That sounds odd as there’s no obvious reason to exclude the iPad.

With iOS 5 still in beta and the iPhone 5 still just a collection of rumours, there’s no guarantee as to what voice control will end up in the finished product. Click the headline and jump into the comments to let us know what you want Apple to include.

Out TBC | £TBC | Apple (via 9to5Mac)