Section: Mac Software, Writing / Publishing, Reviews
Format: Digital download or DVD
Developer: Nuance
Minimum System Requirements: Intel-based Mac, Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard, Internet connection for product registration, Nuance-certified USB microphone for Mac (included, except for upgrades).
Processor Compatibility: Intel only
Price: $179.99 download, $199.99 physical shipment, $49.99 upgrade
Availability: Now
I’ve been battling typing and mousing pain for nearly as long as I’ve been using computers—almost two decades now, so I’m very selective about input devices I use. My priorities are light action, smooth clicking, light and smooth mouse tracking, and, with keyboards, a short travel and a soft landing with a minimum of ?over?center? feedback.
I also use dictation software for as much of my long form composition as is practical, and wherever and whenever else it’s efficient to do so. I began using dictation software back when discrete dictation was still de rigueur, obliging…users…to pause…between…each…spoken…word…like…this. Continuous speech technology, which arrived in the late ‘90s, was a massive leap forward for the technology. And today, Nuance’s Dragon Dictate speech recognition software is the state of the art both on Macs and Windows, capable of transcription of dictation at rates faster than I like to speak, and definitely faster than I can type, and with amazing accuracy.
Back in the ‘90s, the old discrete dictation software was so clumsy, slow, and error-prone that I couldn’t imagine anyone using it unless they were obliged to for health reasons. However, Dragon Dictate is so good today that it’s well worth considering as an efficiency enhancer even if typing pain is a complete non-ssue for you. It’s so quick, slick, and accurate even with a minimum of voice training that I don’t doubt Nuance’s claim that it can speed up typing performance by up to three times the rate even skilled typists can acheive with a keyboard, thus presenting an attractive alternative to manual typing.
Unfortunately, there was one significant bug I encountered in the early builds of DragonDictate 2.x causing it to transpose the last two letters of some words in transcribing spoken dictation to digital text. This was most evident when dictating into third-party applications, and mostly absent when using Dictate’s own Notepad application, but since one of Dictate’s marquee features is its ability to enter dictated text virtually anywhere, it amounted to a serious and aggravating flaw.
Dragon Dictate 2.0.3 Update Released
I’m happy to report that bug was eliminated with the release of the Dragon Dictate 2.0.2 update in early February. Since then I’ve been dictating articles into my favorite text editor, Text Edit Plus, as well as email software, browser Web forms and so forth, and the transcription bug has evidently been completely squashed. Dictate is now an un-alloyed pleasure and joy to use, and the version 2.0.3 update that followed several weeks later—fixing an issue that could cause unusually high CPU usage—adds a further level of refinement.
In addition to allowing you to use your spoken voice instead of a keyboard to produce text, you can also control your Mac by voice with Dictate. Instead of using your keyboard and mouse, just speak commands into the microphone to launch and control applications, move the cursor, or click anywhere on screen by voice.
Dictate has four modes: Dictation Mode, Command Mode, Spelling Mode, and Sleep Mode. Dictation Mode is self-explanatory, but while you’re in it you can also issue commands. When in Command Mode, the program recognizes and executes only commands, and can be considered “Command Only” Mode. A completely new Spelling Mode made its debut with MacSpeech Dictate 1.2, allowing users to spell words, names, or acronyms by using either natural language or the International Radio Alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, etc.). Sleep Mode simply lets you toggle the microphone and application on and off.
Another Dragon Dictate feature is Phrase Training, which helps you increase accuracy by letting you train your voice profile as you proceed. While most of the speech recognition industry refers to this feature as “correction,” which is accurate in the sense that it can indeed be used to correct text in your documents, this descriptor in some respects misses the point because ongoing training also helps refine Dictate’s ability to recognize what you intended to say.
With Phrase Training you’re not stuck with the level of accuracy arrived at with your initial voice training until you take the time to read more training stories, and you don’t have to specifically train the recognition engine from a document or selection. Instead, you can train a phrase immediately when you see it was misrecognized. Then the next time you dictate that phrase or word in the phrase, Dragon Dictate is more likely to recognize it accurately.
Rating Dragon Dictate presents a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand, it’s the closest to perfection in Mac dictation software anyone has yet achieved. On the other hand, there is still room for improvement, especially in making getting up to speed with its more advanced features more intuitive and user-friendly. There are also a few functional niggles that could stand some work. I wish there was a way to hide the floater control palette (even though it’s a lot prettier than the old one in MacSpeech’s former PowerPC dictation product iListen) when it’s not in use other than closing the program. Working on a 13.3” MacBook screen, one cherishes every square millimeter of desktop real estate.
The Plantronics microphone headset that comes bundled with Dictate has proved excellent, equal to or better than any mics I ever used with MacSpeech iListen. It’s light, adjustable, and attractive-looking, and it has a conveniently long cord. The mic does require a USB dongle, which uses up a precious USB port, but I prefer the precision responsiveness of a hard-wired mic to the lesser accuracy I’ve experienced dictating with Bluetooth wireless microphones.
For now, I’m giving Dragon Dictate 2.0.3 a four out of five rating, but with a bullet. At this stage of the game it’s your best (actually only) Mac OS dictation solution, and a tool well worth having in your software suite.
Dragon Dictate requires an Intel-based Mac, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or greater, 3GB of available hard drive space, 2GB of RAM recommended and an Internet connection for product registration. The software comes complete with a bundled, Nuance-approved Plantronics USB microphone headset that’s lightweight and comfortable to wear for long sessions.
Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.0.3 sells for $199.99 through Nuance?s Website with a USB microphone serving as the standard headset with new purchases. A Bluetooth microphone option is available. Existing MacSpeech Dictate customers and Dragon NaturallySpeaking customers can upgrade to Dragon Dictate for Mac starting at $49.99 and $99.99 respectively for a limited time.
The version 2.0.3 update is free for registered version 2.0 and 2.0.2 users.
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