Limbaugh describes his mobile system in the car: he uses an iPhone 4S, with the car's built-in Bluetooth entertainment system, and a Wi-Fi connection to a "Verizon LTE hotspot," presumably the Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MiFi 4620L (reviewed recently by ) or something very like it.

He describes, accurately, how Apple's Siri dictation feature works (you can compare it with from November 2011): "[The way that] Apple iPhone dictation works is you hit the microphone button on your keyboard, and that immediately establishes an online connection with Apple servers somewhere. The dictation does not occur, the translation does not occur in the phone. What you say is transmitted at whatever connection speed you're using -- 3G, 4G, or Wi-Fi -- to Apple servers wherever they are. The speech is then transcribed to text by a company called Nuance, which makes Dragon Dictation, and that's the voice-to-text aspect of Siri in the iPhone. So you say, "Testing one, two, three" and hit the microphone button. Apple's servers then transcribe it and send it back to you, and it displays on your screen."

When his iPhone is paired to the car's Bluetooth setup, "if I'm listening to the radio, for example -- the moment I hit the microphone [the Siri icon] on the iPhone, the radio is muted, because a phone call is being made, essentially. The phone system via Bluetooth is used to send my voice transcription out to Apple and back [based on his network description, this is probably not the case: via Bluetooth, the car's radio is being automatically muted, but the iPhone itself is presumably connecting via Wi-Fi to the LTE hotspot]. When it comes back [presumably meaning 'when the dictation text is displayed'] and the connection is finished, then the audio from the radio resumes."

He's used the entire arrangement, and Siri dictation, for some time and "Up until today, it worked flawlessly."

On Tuesday morning in the car, Limbaugh tries to reply to "some stuff" sent by Kathryn (presumably his wife). "I attempt dictation, and nothing happens. I hit the microphone button and I get the three beeps and no connection. It's not working. So I say, 'Ah, damn it, the system's down. Something's wrong with the servers,' but I keep trying," he tells his listeners.