I have to admit that Siri was one of the big reasons that I was going to order the new iPad immediately. Now I'm not so sure I'll get one, given that it doesn't include Siri. Plus, it's a bit thicker and heavier. But it does have Dictation. Unlike Siri, Dictation doesn't let you operate your iPad via voice, nor does it understand natural language. It simply recognizes speech. When you say to Siri, "Do I need an umbrella today?", Siri understands that you're asking about the weather and gives you the answer. If you say the same question to Dictate, it will simply translate your sentence to text. This is called speech recognition.