[Paul in Saudi]

I see the technology guy at the New York Times gave Naturally Speaking 9.0 a rave review. He mentioned that iListen is the best thing going for Mac.

I note that NS 9.0 is not yet on the market. No bother, as I will not be back in the US for a couple of months. I will get a new iMac then. But even if I was in the States and ready to buy now, I see all the VR programs come in a confusing number of flavors (basic, pro, deluxe) and I am not clear on the differences between them.

So, ought I to try VR? If so, which program do you like?

[Franz Josef]

iListen is much less good than I'd expected - I've had mine a while now and no longer use it; it always seems so clunky and error prone. VR still hasn't come of age to my mind

[Chinney]

Bumping a really, really old thread...but my question is exactly the same. I last tried it over 10 years ago (on a PC) , and gave up because it was definitely not ready for prime time then. Dragon Naturally Speaking is up to version 11 now, with better accuracy and general usability with each release, or so they claim and the reviews generally say. But is it true? Does anyone here use it on a ongoing basis?

In any case, I have never been all that great of a typist, so I think that I will give it a try again to see if can improve my productivity in front of the screen. My workplace will install it at no cost (to me) on my work PC, so I will try it there first. If that works out, I will buy a copy for my Mac (Dragon has been native on Macs for a few years now) and leave the keyboard behind whenever I can.

[drewprops]

I almost ordered the Mac version of Dragon for Christmas but held back because I didn't have a pressing need. I'd love to hear a review though.

[Chinney]

I will certainly provide an unbiased 'Nova review once I have had it installed at my office (not until next week) and have had a chance to work with it a bit.

[Chinney]

A technical hitch has delayed installation, but I should be getting it next week or the week after. I'll be posting initial impressions and then a review.

[Chinney]

After many, many delays due to some technical glitches, I finally had Dragonspeak 11 installed last week on my Windows box at work. So far, I am extremely impressed. The technology was not ready for prime time 10 years ago when I worked briefly with a much earlier version of Dragon. It is ready now. Its basic word recognition ability / accuracy is extremely impressive, as are its multiple abilities to learn and improve as it listens to you. It is a bit eerie actually...an experience with artificial intelligence.

It definitely takes some adjustment to speak to your computer as the main interface, and make no mistake, Dragonspeak is powerful enough to replace almost all other interaction with the computer, not just text entry, if you want to use it that way. Also, while it is well-designed to be used in an intuitive, natural way, there is also a learning investment required, especially for the most advanced functions. But already after a week I am using it much more than I expected, such that I already find it almost an exception to use the keyboard on any steady basis. I have never been a very good or a very happy typist and the current version of Dragonspeak has been a revelation for me in how I use my computer.

I'll be buying the Mac version, and will give a fuller review of that. From what I have read online, it is also very good. Dragon supposedly did not do a cheap port of Dragon from Windows, but did a proper Mac version, taking elements from MacSpeech (which they bought) and adapting it to the latest version of the Dragon speech recognition engine. I'll let you know.

[Chinney]

I may have spoken too soon. I did some additional research before purchasing the Mac version, and I am glad that I did. While the Mac version is not just a cheap port of the Windows program, it still suffers from some drawbacks - drawbacks that in fact stem from its MacSpeech origins. MacSpeech never advanced enough to allow smooth transitions between voice control and manual control of the computer. Essentially it wants you to follow a "golden rule" of only doing voice entry or manual entry, but not to move back and forth.

I have found, in my limited experience, that the ability to move back and forth is actually a very handy one, especially for navigating through the document with a mouse to find the point for text entry, then speaking the entry. In MacSpeech, however, that is strongly discouraged, as it tends to confuse the speech recognition which does not know where the mouse has been, does not know what the mouse (or the keyboard, if you used that as well) has been doing, and does not know where the current data entry point is. In the Windows version, that problem has been solved for most applications in which you enter text. In the Mac version of Dragon, the old MacSpeech limitation still applies unless you use the native Dragon notepad, or you use TextEdit, for all text entry and then cut and paste into your other applications. This is a pain for day-to-day use. There is also another workaround in the Mac version under which you say a special command "Cache document" after every manual interaction with the computer which then allows the voice recognition software to see the document in its current form, but that is a pain as well.

I am reconsidering purchasing the Mac version until this long-standing limitation is solved.

[Capella]

Sorry to hear about the Mac version fails. I was really excited when I read your opinion on the Windows one, because I like to talk out my stories to myself while working. Currently I'll record myself a voice memo of chattering about a scene, then I have to transcribe it, then start working from that transcription. Being able to just verbally dump onto the computer, have it mostly correctly transcribed, and then clean it up later would be a lot easier. I doubt I'd ever use voice control for the computer, but the part about it not knowing where the data entry point is sounds annoying.

[Chinney]

Yes, it is frustrating. After doing a bit more reading on Nuance's own Mac forums (Nuance now owns Dragon), I have seen a lot more accounts of difficulties with the Mac version beyond the "golden rule" problem that I described above. It appears that the Mac version is not nearly as stable, adaptable, or refined as Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 for Windows. Some people still find that the Mac version is worthwhile, but I see more reports of serious problems than I do praise. For many, the only real solution is running the Windows version in Parallels.

Even accounting for the usual "gripe" factor on forums like that, my own impression is that, overall, the Mac version is 'not (yet) ready for prime time'. Maybe they will improve it with further development. I can however personally vouch for Dragon NatuarllySpeaking 11 for Windows as being a highly usable program, so voice recognition in general has 'arrived' - just not for the Mac.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by Chinney I may have spoken too soon.

Very punny. I like it.

[Chinney]

Originally Posted by Brad Very punny. I like it.

Not intended, actually, when I wrote that. I guess you could say I was just speaking naturally.

[Chinney]

I am getting so used to dictating using Dragon at work - and realizing, in doing that, just how much I hate typing - that I have decided to get the Mac version, despite the issues described above. I ordered it from Amazon about an hour ago.

I will likely dictate into the built-in Dragon notepad or use TextEdit (and cut and paste from that into my main documents), in order to allow for seamless transitions between voice and manual commands while dictating. With any luck Nuance will further develop the Mac version to address this drawback, allowing these transitions in other applications like Word. In the meantime, I think I can readily adapt to this way of working for much of my work.

I will let you know how it goes.

[Sauvblanc]

What i would love love love love is a fully speaker-independent voice recognition software, but unless there's been a huge leap in the field I suspect this is still a ways off.

Not for me necessarily but something I could use to have "normal" phone calls without the need for a 3rd person (i.e. relay operator) having to transcribe everything coming from the person I'm ultimately talking to.

Even better if it could work on my iPhone.

Phone sex would be *so* much better this way. Really.

[Chinney]

I received a copy of Dragon for Mac yesterday and have set it up today. Contrary to my expectations, my preliminary impression is that, subject to a partial exception which I'll explain further below, it actually works better on my Mac than it does on my PC at work. It was much easier to set up on the Mac, much much quicker to do the initial adaptation to my voice. It is faster in its basic function of transcribing text from voice, and is more accurate as well. Also I much prefer the overlay interface of Dragon on the Mac to that which is used on the PC version. All of this is contrary to some of the initial reviews I saw of the Mac version – reviews which made me hesitant to buy it for the Mac.

It is not entirely clear to me why it is working better on my Mac. I suppose there are many variables at play. The processing power on my 1.5 year old MacBook Pro may be better than on my 2.5 year old desktop computer at work. Also, I'm running Snow Leopard at home while I'm still stuck with Windows XP at work (not my choice). It is possible that the headset microphone that came with the product for the Mac is better than the one I am using at work. Also at work I am mostly dictating into Microsoft Word, while at home I am so far using only Apple's built-in TextEdit program; it may be the case that it is much easier for Dragon to adapt to what I assume is relatively straightforward code in TextEdit than the bloated code in Microsoft Word.

The partial exception is an issue that I described earlier in this thread. In general, Dragon for Mac has not yet been further refined so as to allow seamless transitions between voice interaction and manual interaction for text entry: it prefers you do all of one or all of the other as you are entering text into a document. My understanding is that Dragon has to be adapted to every program that is used in. For the basic PC programs, notably including Word, the further refinement described above has been achieved. So far for the Mac platform Dragon has only made this refinement for TextEdit. Dragon works on applications like Word for Mac, but just not with this feature. It is, however, an important feature, at least for me. All that said after years of having a Mac and never having really worked with TextEdit, I am discovering that it is actually quite a capable program. And also for long passages of text, the additional bother of having to initially dictate into TextEdit and then cut-and-paste into Microsoft Word costs me only a few seconds of time which is peanuts compared to the time I save not having to type (I am quite a slow and a very inaccurate typist).

So far so good for Dragon on the Mac for me. (All of this text was entered using Dragon, except for a few final edits).

[Dorian Gray]

Chinney (and others), you may find the new version of Dragon Dictate a useful improvement, in that it now offers simultaneous keyboard and voice entry. Read about it here.

[Chinney]

That is great news. Thanks Dorian.

[torifile]

A year later, any more impressions? I am contemplating buying the app.

[Chinney]

Hey torifile,

I still use it and will give some further impressions soon. (Unsanely busy right now dealing with work and other matters. )

[Chinney]

Bump - a few years. I never did get to that updated review. I have continued to use Dragon at work on my work-issued PC and at home on the Mac. I have not been as faithful in using it, as my current PC - although on fairly new and with the latest Dragon PC software - for some reason does not work all that well with Dragon. Pretty unstable. I have continued to use it on the Mac, but not as often - getting out of the habit at work has affected my home use as well.

Also, I have been trying Mac's native OS X dictation - using it occasionally instead of Dragon. I just bought a new MBP Retina, and one thing that I have noticed is that with its really good built-in microphone and much faster processor than my old machine, Apple's native dictation function in OS X now works better, and without a need for a headset microphone. I will probably be ditching Dragon Dictate, and my headset, from here on.

I have actually been toying with Apple's dictation app for couple of years now. It has has been improving markedly over the last few releases, although until now I had never found it quite up to Dragon. El Capitan dictation still does not have quite as much functionality in some areas as Dragon, but in other areas it is much better. Notably, it works natively in all applications (Dragon does not), is extremely quick to activate (Dragon can be painfully slow to start up), it allows for seamless back and forth between keyboard and voice input (Dragon can do this trick in only a few apps) and is less buggy than Dragon.

All of this is premised on turning on all the advanced functionality and commands in the current OS X dictation. For reasons I can't understand, advanced dictate and extended commands are turned off by default by Apple. You have to dig down into Preferences in Dictation and then again under Accessibility to turn on everything. And then there is a bit of learning curve to learn all the commands, which are different from Dragon's. But once everything is turned on and you put a bit of time into learning it, OS X Dictation is now quite good. It could get better still, but I am finding it entirely usable and quite handy. Kudos to Apple for their work on this.