NOTE: I have written some updates on the newer version below – make sure you read them! The new version is fantastic and I fully recommend. This review below starts off quite negatively because it is reviewing Macspeech Dictate Version 1.0 which had significant problems. I have left it here as a reference so you have something to compare the later comments to…
28th April, 2008 Macspeech Version 1.0
Ever since I first used Dragon Naturally Speaking Version 4 in 2000, I have been waiting for it to be released on the Macintosh. Well it’s finally arrived, it’s called “MacSpeech Dictate”, and it’s powered by Dragon. Unfortunately there are still a few hiccups. My advice is if you have been using voice recognition already – Viavoice or iListen, then make the switch – it’s an improvement. But if you are not currently using speech recognition, wait a little longer. It’s not quite there yet, and the adjustment to speech recognition combined with some bugs makes for a steep learning curve.
I was an early adopter of speech recognition.
As a mac user, I purchased a PC to run Dragon Naturally Speaking which I used just for dictation! I would copy the dictated files to a thumb drive edit them on my Mac. Not too long later, Viavoice arrived on the mac, and while not as good as Dragon, it was usable. I’ve been using IBM ViaVoice to dictate all my sermons for the past 6 years, but ViaVoice has it’s limitations, the main one being that its accuracy is not as good as Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
Now in terms of dictation and recognition, MacSpeech 1.0 Dictate is fantastic. The accuracy is very impressive and it does not take much training. In fact I think I was reading stories for about five minutes and then I was ready to Dictate. It’s also a very stable application, unlike IBM ViaVoice which was frequently crashing.
It integrates very easily so that you can dictate into any Macintosh program. IBM ViaVoice was meant to do this but in reality whenever you were dictating into anything other than the ViaVoice speakpad it was tediously slow.
So what are the problems?
Firstly there is a bug in it so that if you correct anything with your mouse and keyboard, it gets out of sync and loses it’s place, and you can’t keep dictating.
Secondly, it doesn’t train itself from your mistakes.
One of my favourite features of Dragon NaturallySpeaking was the correction window where the program automatically learnt from your mistakes. When it mis-recognised a word, all you had to say was ”correct that” and type in the correct word, and Dragon NaturallySpeaking would automatically train itself so that whenever you spoke that word again it would get it right.
When Macspeech Dictate makes a mistake it just keeps misrecognizing the word, and you can’t re-train it. The manual promises that this correction feature will come in an update – let’s hope it’s soon.
Conclusion
If you have been using ViaVoice or iListen, then you will be blown away by the accuracy of Macspeech Dictate – it’s simply the best voice recognition software for the Mac.
On the other hand, if you have come across from the PC using Dragon NaturallySpeaking you will be taking a step backwards due to the lack of automatic correction, and the buginess of the software.
It’s a very nice piece of software, but with its current lack of features and bugs, it should be a beta version. In my opinion, it’s worth $100, $200 if you really need it, but at $300, it’s way overpriced given it’s problems.
Macspeech Dictate Version 1.1
This was a minor upgrade with no major worthwhile improvements.
Macspeech Dictate Version 1.2
WOW. This was a major upgrade and it has all the features that I mentioned needing improving. Macspeech added the ability automatically learn from it’s mistakes so it trains itself as you use it. Also editing your text is much easier. And it’s much more stable.
Macspeech Dictate Version 1.5
Macspeech dictate is now up to version 1.5. It just keeps getting better. The latest version achieves almost full accuracy with just 5-10 minutes of training. There is also a version available for transcription (Using pre-recorded voice for example from a dictaphone) called Macspeech Scribe, as well as medical versions with expanded vocabulary. If this is beginning to sound like an advertisement, it is – I now love this piece of software!
To me it is now every bit as good as Dragon Naturally Speaking on the PC in terms of recognition. It totally blows away iListen or IBM ViaVoice.
I use it every day and I have written a separate article here on how to use it well.
Note to Australian Users:
With Dragon NaturallySpeaking the only option was to purchase it in Australia because there was a special Australian edition which was made using the Australian accent.
With Macspeech Dictate however, the US version comes with Australian accent, so you can buy the normal version of MacSpeech Dictate from the US for about $200, $100 less than Australia. It comes with USA, UK and Australian versions built-in.
Where to buy it.
If you want to buy Macspeech Dictate (the improved version!) you can buy it directly from MacSpeech – click here.
(There is currently a special being offered on the new Macspeech Dictate. Click on the link above to get 5% off and if your purchase includes a microphone, enter the coupon code ‘MACSPEECH’ at the checkout to get 10% off.)
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True, Dictate is a major improvement over iListen but that is because it is a port of the Windows based Dragon Dictate speech technology. Because iListen never really worked as promised, Dictate should have been offered as a free upgrade to all iListen users.
It seems MacSpeech is getting a great deal of heat over customer service issues, product crashes and defective install disks. One attorney was suggesting a class action suite be considered in the MacWorld forum.
MacSpeech has an opportunity to finally offer Mac users a speech to text product close to that available to Windows users for the last several years. Lets hope their limited staff and resources don’t cause them to drop the ball.
Given the news stories circulating at the moment concerning the concentration of seriously dangerous bacteria living on our keyboards… business should boom!
I’m going to disinfect my hands now.
I just received my upgraded version of ilisten. It’s a brand new version of dictate with it’s own serial number, but without the headset.
[...] this previous review of MacSpeech Dictate I mentioned that as good as MacSpeech Dictate was, there were still a few [...]
Just curious if the updates every came? I’ve been using Dragon on the PC for a couple years now. There’s a long over due update for version 10 coming this week for Dragon (Version 10 of Dragon is the equivalent of MacSpeech Dictate which deubted about 8 months earlier).
Anyway, there have been complaints from PC users that the updates weren’t fast enough on this one, and I’m curious how it feels in the Mac community….
Yep updates coming every few months. We are now up to version 1.3.
Do you mean there is now a McSpeech Dictate version 1.3 available?
Is this version available in German language, for use on Mac OSX, version 10.5.5?
I am working on a book and interview many people for an hour each. I am a Mac user and do not want to buy a pc just for a good solid speech recognition software.
It has been a while since this post was created – a year and some change. What program do you suggest I purchase and why.
Is the Dragon speak on PC that much better than anything I can get on a mac. I don’t want to spend many hours tweaking text. Thanks M
Macspeech dictate is very good, but it won’t recognise their speech, only yours. It needs to be trained to the voice it is recognising, and requires you to speak clearly. I think it’s as good as the PC version now in terms of accuracy.
does anyone know if dictate will transcribe prerecorded files like dragon does?
+1 for dennis’ question.
Curiosity is burning a hole in my brain on this one, and it doesn’t say anywhere on the MacSpeech site that it handles pre-recorded interviews.
I have a thick stack of reels to transcribe, and I would FAR prefer training a robot to handle the transcription than I would training (and paying) a bubblegum popping employee.
$200 one-time up front is a far better value equation to me than a recurring bill for $25.00/audio hour * hundreds of hours of audio hours.
Keep me posted, Gents and ladies!
There is no ability to open an audio file and have macspeech dictate recognise it.
You can’t open a file off your portable recorder and have Mac speech dictate transcribe it like what would happen with Dragon NaturallySpeaking on the PC.
The only way that I can see around this would be to play an audio file from your Mac and then feed it back into the input of Mac speech dictate, perhaps with some software like sound flower, or the old-fashioned way with an audio lead connected from your mac’s sound out to the sound in connector.
But keep in mind that the audio quality has to be very good and it have to be speaking straight into the microphone, and it certainly would not be able to do two voices like in an interview.
Have they worked out the bug in Dictate, such as you described here?: “So why is it “not quite as good as Dragon NaturallySpeaking”? A few reasons. The most annoying is that there is a bug in it so that if you correct anything with your mouse and keyboard, it gets out of sync and loses it’s place, and you can’t keep dictating. So you must dictate by commands, which is tedious to say the least.”
Also, have they added the “correction window” yet to Dictate?
Please advise. I’m a Mac user, but I’m on the verge of buying a PC just to be able to use Dragon. Thoughts?
Yes they have improved it dramatically form the first version, see the updates post here:
http://macintoshhowto.com/software/how-to-dictate-into-your-macintosh.html
I have a Mac and work in pharmaceuticals. I travel from account to account long distances in my car and would like to use a handheld digital recording device that I could attach to my Mac and have it transcribe to text. Sounds to me that, unlike Dragon, one cannot use an external recording device with MacSpeech Dictate.
If this is correct, would it be feasible to load a Windows Operating System and Microsoft Office on my Mac and just go ahead and use Dragon Naturally Speaking? Would this work correctly and would it allow me to use an external digital recorder?
I am fairly new to the Mac world and don’t want to buy and be stuck with a whole bunch of Windows software that doesn’t work on my Mac. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Ditto the Q from Marti for me!
I’m about 2/3 converted to my Mac, but still want assurance of best way to do speech recognition on the Mac (especially with digital recorder as the input source!!)
Note: Currently quite happy with Dragon ver 9 on my PC Laptop.
Waiting and hoping!!
Thanks
I noticed this tonight, Aussie time, in The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW). It may be of interest to some recent questions!
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/12/08/dragon-dictation-comes-to-the-iphone-wow/
Dragon Dictation Comes To The iPhone – and TUAW seems quite impressed.
Mac-speech dictate is hands down the best dictation software for the Mac. The out-of-the-box Mac speech dictate does not transcribe from a recorder or audio file, but there is a separate version called ‘scribe’ that will take AIFF files, MP3 etc and convert them to text! ( you still need to train it beforehand with your voice).
Marti, this should help:
Unable to start Dragon Naturally Speaking 9.5 in Windows Vista virtual machine.
Article ID: 4896
Last Review: Sep,29 2009
Author: Daria Taranova
Last updated by: Ivan Chega APPLIES TO:
• Parallels Desktop for Mac 3.0
• Parallels Desktop for Mac 4.0
• Parallels Desktop for Mac 2.0
• Parallels Desktop for Windows & Linux
Symptoms
Error message “This program should not be run in elevated mode” appears on Dragon Naturally Speaking startup.
Cause
Microsoft User Account Control (UAC) doesn’t let you run Dragon Naturally Speaking Administrator when logged on as Administrator.
Resolution
There are two ways to solve the problem:
1. Log on to some non-administrator account and run the program.
2. In the Administrator account, Windows Vista will put the program into elevated mode automatically. So you will need to turn off the UAC, which can be done on the Control Panel. Also, be sure that in the preferences for the program the “Run as Administrator” option is not selected.
I found it at: http://kb.parallels.com/en/4896