Review: MacSpeech Dictate Is a Great Tool For Writers

MacSpeech Dictate is dictation software for the Mac that helps you enhance your productivity by simply dictating rather than typing. It is based on Nuance’s Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech engine, which ensures highly accurate speech recognition capabilities. In fact, the company claims it to be about 95% accurate. Although the lack of a Beta version makes it hard to believe but surprisingly, it’s very true.

Recently, I had a chance to test version 1.5 of this for myself and from my experience, it works really well. It’s not just a simple application, but a full-fledged dictation solution for any Mac user, especially for a writer or a journalist.

In the box you get two installation discs and a noise-cancellation microphone headset by Plantronics that uses USB audio, which has an adjustable band if you have a big head like me. It’s pretty good for using the microphone function but I don’t recommend it for listening to any music.

After going through the installation procedure, you are asked to train the software so that it becomes familiar with your voice. You can create separate profiles for separate voices. The training process itself is really simple. It’s just to give you a basic sense of using the software and training it to recognize your speech better. You just need to say a few sentences displayed on the screen and you are done. It usually takes no more than five minutes if you follow the startup instructions and speak clearly into it. You can take up the training process as many times as you like once you have successfully installed the software. For creating a profile, you can choose between different spelling styles and accents. For this particular review, I used the Indian accent.

The UI is minimal and mostly confined in a HUD, which sits on top of all applications. Here, it shows which mode you are using, how loud you are speaking, the last phrase you just spoke, and so on.

Firstly, I found it hard to use the application as I’m not used to speaking punctuation but after spending a week or so, I was pretty comfortable with it. You must also be aware that speech recognition works differently than speaking to a normal person. They can easily understand in what context is a word is used but with speech recognition, you tend to make mistakes. However, every time you correct the mistake, the software learns more and more about the way you speak, which really helps. For instance, it can get confused between the words ‘to’ and ‘two’. It does sometimes intelligently figure out the correct one but this is not the case every time.

This application has four modes – dictation mode, spelling mode, command mode and sleep mode. You can switch between different modes just by saying the name of the mode. Out of these, the most used are obviously the dictation and spelling mode, which as I highlighted above work pretty well, if you speak clearly. The more you use it, the better it gets. You can even add some words that you commonly use to its vocabulary. You can either use the built-in text pad or use it with any other application. However, using it with other applications, like web browsers, is a pain due to the weak command mode.

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Even though the application as a whole works nicely, the command mode seems a bit unfinished. For example, you can switch applications simply by saying the name of the application. However, the sheer number of commands you need to remember for each application makes it hard to use. It is fine for simple usage but while multitasking, instead of making your workflow easier, the command mode makes it much more complicated. Even when navigating through text, I prefer using a mouse rather than speech. One command that does work well is the “sleep command.” You can put the software to rest using the sleep mode and switch back to the normal mode simply by asking it to “wake up.”

Overall, it’s a great solution and works well for dictation software, but not so well for voice control of your Mac. Like every other thing out there, it has it’s own flaws, which can be improved in the future. It you are planning to buy a transcribing solution or are a writer, this application is definitely something you must consider. But if you’re looking for a voice command application to completely drop your mouse and keyboard, you might be a bit disappointed. It’s definitely not cheap but considering the included noise cancellation headset and the great speech recognition capabilities it packs, it’s worth your hard-earned money. In fact, I find myself using it regularly to write for the site.

Interestingly, the company has recently launched a one-to-one training program for US customers in conjunction with The Emergent Institute (TEI). The personalized training program is available as an add-on for an introductory price of $49.95 per 50 minute session. Additional information is available at http://www.macspeech.com/oneonone/.

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