MacSpeech Dictate Review

MacSpeech Dictate is a voice recognition and dictation system for Apple Macs. While the Windows world has Dragon Dictate, the Macosx world has so far been pretty under served in this kind of software, with all previous efforts not coming up to the standard of Dragon.

Then we hear that MacSpeech had licensed some of the wonderful Dragon technology and had built a native Mac dictation system from the ground up. This I had to try. My aching wrists and my ever-growing to-do list were begging me.

When I first heard about MacSpeech I thought it sounded like my dream of having Star Trek style computer control. As it turns out, while the system is brilliant, and far more advanced than really we should hope for, it is in fact not quite at the point where you can simply talk to the computer and have it understand your every word.

As you can see though in the video, you can talk pretty fast and have it still follow what you’re saying. The problem I have is having to think about everything consciously, including punctuation, and all that good stuff.

You can see and hear me thinking through this article and dictating it and you can see the MacSpeech reaction to everything that I am saying. Most of the awkwardness is coming from me rather than the system.


[Video may not play in email/feed so click through to view]

When you read the instructions it does tell you that you need to train the system and go through a fair bit of work to get the MacSpeech software to understand what you. In fact, in my experience it is training me that is going to be difficult, not training the software.

On receiving the package I went through the setup procedure and within an hour or less I was tweeting and e-mailing using the software. That’s pretty impressive.

My main difficulty of until now has been learning the keyboard controls and forcing myself to keep my hands off the keys. As it says in the manual you should either dictate or type, not try to do both. That is proving to be very difficult indeed!

Is it more efficient than typing? For me right now possibly not, but that is no fault of the software. It’s more about the amount of time I have dedicated to learning the system and a new approach to creating content. That said, I am certainly going to persist with it because I think it will help both my productivity and RSI.

In conclusion, I think the package is an amazing achievement and is only getting better as they release updates. Already I can see it being extremely beneficial in creating first drafts of content very quickly. I just need to buckle down and RTFM :)

Posted on April 24, 2009 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Productivity, Software Tools

Comments

7 Responses to “MacSpeech Dictate Review”

  1. Michael Stelzner on April 24th, 2009 4:00 pm

    Chris;

    I think your demo has encouraged me to open the box that has been sitting on my desk for a few weeks!

    Mike

  2. Chris Garrett on April 24th, 2009 5:53 pm

    Definitely give it a try – if it can understand me and my accent so quickly (without much training other than the essential) it absolutely will work for you :)

  3. MacSpeech Dictate Review « widaca on June 19th, 2009 11:13 pm

    [...] [Video may not play in email/feed so click through to view] [...]

  4. David Wall on July 29th, 2009 4:26 am

    Awesome evaluation — thanks — I am glad I discovered your website and will pass it on to my Mac friends.

  5. Becky on October 14th, 2009 8:05 pm

    How well does it work within flash-laden apps? I have arthritis and am considering purchasing MacSpeech to help with papers for school but the university also uses Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro extensively. Thanks in advance for your help.

  6. My Essential Blogging Gadgets from 2009? | GadgetyNews.com on January 2nd, 2010 6:35 pm

    [...] Dictate – You can see me using this software on my full Macspeech software review, but suffice to say I was delighted with how this software performed. I had prepared myself that it [...]

  7. JayG on April 6th, 2010 10:30 pm

    Chris, thanks for showing how you use MacSpeech Dictate. This was from awhile ago, but based on the video, you could probably speak faster, if you enunciate more. It does take a bit of getting used to….but, don’t be shy. :-)

    There’s an approach I call “Creative Mode”. This is where you look away from the screen, and just dictate, with or without punctuation. You still need to enunciate, and may lose a bit of accuracy, because punctuation adds context, which helps the system recognize words. However, this is a great approach for simply getting ideas out of your head. Only try this after you’ve been using and training the product for a fair amount of time (a few hours).

    If you learn the Editing commands (“Train the Words” and “Select The Words”) you can always go back and correct mistakes by voice. This will not only fix “speak-o’s” but will of course continue to improve recognition. Saying “Press Play” or clicking the “Play” button will repeat the audio, so you can remember what you actually said, and edit/train it.

    Thanks again for sharing this video.

    - JayG (@macspeech)

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