MacSpeech Dictate Review

No pithy title. No lazy link love to another review. Just a straight up review of the software that most likely saved my career.

I have had a problem with my hands for quite some time. As a lawyer, I do a fair amount of typing, whether that's for e-mail responses or in drafting letters and agreements. At the same time, I spent a number of years playing the piano recreationally. All of this has resulted in me having a dull pain in my hands whenever I type too much after a long day.

Before I switched to Macs, I ran a speech recognition software called Dragon Naturally Speaking. It was pretty good, but the law firm that I worked for got me the "legal" edition of the software, which I think was a few versions behind the really good software. After I switched to Macs, the only piece of software that was out there for speech recognition was iListen by MacSpeech. To be frank, it wasn't very good. In fact, with all due respect to MacSpeech, it was terrible. So, for the last two years, I have been writing things out longhand, typing everything, and generally living with the dull pain that resulted.

As many people who are interested in speech recognition software know, MacSpeech announced that they were launching a new speech recognition software called Dictate. This was really important news because rather than relying on the old Phillips engine that powered iListen, MacSpeech had been able to license the engine that powered Dragon from Nuance, and that was what was going to be running the new Dictate software. They made this announcement at MacWorld, even winning a Best of Show award for Dictate. I was very excited and placed my order right away.

Then, I spent the next month and a half checking the status of my order two or three times a day. Finally, last night, I learned that my copy of Dictate was shipping out and would arrive today. I installed it right away and have been playing with it for the last three hours. As you might have guessed, I've been drafting this entire review using Dictate.

What can I say? It's fabulous. I mean, I only did the basic training, and I'd be surprised if the software got one word wrong for every thousand that I've spoken. I've used it so much that my keyboard, which is attached via Bluetooth, has power down and lost connection with my Macbook. If it does miss a word, it is most likely because I've gotten lazy with my dictation not because it has misinterpreted the context or word I've spoken.

It takes contractions with ease, and laughs at my challenge to interpret capitalized words like iListen, iPhone, iPod, Dictate, Mac ad nauseam. It even does an excellent job of controlling my computer, such as opening and quitting applications, inserting text before and after other text, and switching between applications.

If I'm being fair with this review, and I'd like to think that I am, I should point out that the software has a couple of bugs. These have less to do with the speech recognition part of the software, and more to do with some of the internal functionality of the commands that you can use to make your speech recognition smoother. Specifically, it has a quirky little bug that copies text after an insertion point somewhere higher in the document and places it at the end of wherever you resume dictating. Not being a programmer, I have no idea why this happens. Also, as many other people have pointed out in their preview of Dictate, the program does not allow you to correct a word by selecting it and choosing from a number of options. Though the company has been very clear that it intends on adding that particular feature in a subsequent version.

Why is this important for you? Well, I'm not sure that it is. But, this is ridiculously important for me because it means I can now rest my hands for the better part of the working day. And, I honestly believe that this software has extended my career by at least a few years. Unfortunately, it also means that I have no excuse for being more productive during the day.

Of course, if you use the program long enough, you will be speaking your punctuation in everyday life. And, that's going to get annoying for your family very very quickly.

Posted by Victor J. Medina,
Medina, Martinez & Castroll, LLC

Comments

[Dissertations Template]

Blogs are so interactive where we get lots of informative on any topics nice job keep it up !!

[writing a dissertation]

Blogs are good for every one where we get lots of information for any topics nice job keep it up !!!

[evbart]

Do you have any updates? I'd love to hear how this has held up to the test of time.

[tom]

i have also tinkered with the new toy briefly since it came out (very early adopter, thanks to having an "in" with macspeech).

the recognition is very impressive, especially considering that it doesn't require the hours of training that ilisten did. but i'm quite disappointed with the way macspeech released the product.

yes, it's a brand-new programme, but... where are all the usual marketing materials? where is the features chart, showing you what the programme can do? (how hard is it, really, to "lift" the dragon naturally-speaking feature chart?) and where is the comparison chart, showing you the differences between dictate and ilisten? (intel vs. powerpc is a biggie, but so is the lack of transcription for a lot of users.) better communications, such as an indication of the highest-priority new features, would keep the faithful onboard, now that they have the option of running the "real dragon" on an intel mac.

and almost everybody starts their review with "i'm not really using an approved microphone, but it works great...", so why not drop the whole "approved microphone list" thing? the software sets up its own levels (and tests your microphone), approved or not.

but in all honesty, it's great for a version 1.0 product.

[Dr. Christopher Buck]

I enjoyed your review and use Dictate on my MacBook Pro myself. My question is this: Which is better?: Dragon's Naturally Speaking, or MacSpeech 's Dictate? Since you've used both, have you reached a verdict? If so, please compare features. Thanks!

[Local Search]

I am running MacSpeech 1.01 on MacBook Pro with 4 gigs of RAM and so far it is doing a great job with accuracy. I am using a Logitech USB headset mic that is not on the approved list of mics but it seems to work well. What microphones are others using ?

[Jim]

Great Review. I am looking into buying this software as well. I am a law student so I would also benefit from not having to type so darn much. I was wondering if you knew if it worked with digital dictation devices?

[Dave]

Thanks for your great review and feedback on Dictate. We are eagerly awaiting Dictate to ship down under to Australia ....

[Randy]

Thanks for this timely and important review. I moved to an Intel-based Mac so I could run Dragon on Windows. I can't wait to get this app. Now I am excited.

Best,

Randy