The mass market already cares about voice-to-text, it's heavily used by Android users (according to the Google-provided data).

True fact. Voice search on Android works flawlessly and I use it all the time in the car.

Except for the 30-something-item-long "Did you mean" list that forces me to look at and physically manipulate the phone, it works amazingly well.

Unfortunately that won't stop Apple from being credited with inventing/popularizing it.

Google/Android was first to market with systemwide voice-to-text. But Apple won't disappoint. I expect Apple's Assistant to be pretty impressive.

Hasn't exactly that feature already somehow failed with the iPod Shuffle, which has physical buttons again? I haven't bought or ever seen that device or the 4th gen successor to make a hands-on judgment. But it seemed like a step back from VoiceOver from the outside. (I loved my 2nd gen Shuffle!)

VoiceOver is purely text-to-speech, not speech recognition or speech-to-text.

The 4th gen Shuffle is the 2nd gen, but slightly smaller and with the VoiceOver technology. If you loved the 2nd gen, you'll love it.

The iPod shuffle has nothing whatsoever to do with voice control.

Edit: That is actually factually true. Not sure why some seem to think otherwise.