[Macworld]

Post your comments for Mountain Lion Dictation versus Dragon Dictate here

[rei_vilo]

Thank you for this interesting review.

Mountain Lion Dictation has another great benefit: it manages many languages at no extra cost. I'm currently switching form English to Spanish and French, with the same output quality.

Now, the clear winner for long texts with technical terms is Dragon Dictate.

But the specification sheet mentions " Supported Operating Systems: OS X Lion (10.7) or OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) ". No mention of " or higher " as for the Windows version " Supported Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows 7 and higher, 32-bit and 64-bit "

Is Nuance going to ask the same expensive update for the coming OS X 10.9 ?

[zekegri]

I am still waiting to hear a real voice instead of the canned computer voices that are still horrible. Why would it be SO difficult to have someone record thousands of the most commonly used words and have the computer spill them back out in sentences? With todays storage and speed this should be very doable. It could also be taught to add new words in the owners voice.

[ptchristy]

There is another advantage to using the dictation feature built into Mountain Lion ... audio suppression. My computer is playing music most of the time and it is a nuisance to mute the speakers or stop the music whenever I dictate. Mountain Lion dictation does that automatically as soon as you click the function key to start dictation. The music resumes playing as soon as you finish dictation. It works similarly to how an iPhone stops the music with an incoming telephone call.

[jatrox]

Its nice to see that you are using the term "speech recognition" instead of "voice recognition" which everyone seems to incorrectly think it is. Well done.

[guywb]

The one thing that prevents me from using Mountain Lion Dictate is the requirement to give access to my contacts list. Maybe it comes from working in secure environments, but I do not understand that requirement.

[brilor]

Besides the Address Book contacts requirement, ML Dictate also requires an internet connection. This feels like a major security hole ( as mentioned by guywb ) to me. Dragon Dictate's primary negative is high price but IMO it is more secure and works better for someone who wants to do serious dictation.

[pwwwayne]

I have been using Dragon Dictate since IBM's ViaVoice disappeared. DD is good. The biggest problem is the atrocious technical support from Nuance! Consult their forums to see. With each version there will be complaints to which there is virtually no response whatsoever. There are quirks that you have to work around. e.g., You may or may not be able to dictate directly into MS Word 2011. In Vocabulary Training the program (for me) cannot read from either MSWord or from Pages. I have to cut-paste into TextEdit or Wrangler to get DD to do the "training process".

The company is clearly amazing in producing this speech recognition program! But their failure to correct bugs and respond for technical support is almost a deal-breaker. And then there is the cost of each upgrade version!! ($99 or more from 2.5 to 3.0)

Still the only useful thing out there for extended dictation. I think they are stretching to enter legal and medical and other languages and neglecting fixing glitches that a hacker could probably help them repair in a short amount of time.

[TeaEarleGreyHot]

Quote

I have been using Dragon Dictate since IBM's ViaVoice disappeared. DD is good. The biggest problem is the atrocious technical support from Nuance! Consult their forums to see. With each version there will be complaints to which there is virtually no response whatsoever. ....their failure to correct bugs and respond for technical support is almost a deal-breaker. And then there is the cost of each upgrade version!! ($99 or more from 2.5 to 3.0) ...

I'm not surprised by this at all, given the "difficult birth" of Nuance, seemingly a minimal-required services company hired by the current patent owners to bleed as much value out of the language recognition systems developed by Janet & Jim Baker, oh-so-long-ago (1990). The way they were victimized by the barons of Wall Street, ending with the loss of their own technology, is a tragic tale. As fine as their invention is, the prospect of paying the wolves to use it just grates against me. Those interested can read a fine article on the NY Times website:
http://www.nytimes.c...?pagewanted=all

[YataHey]

I'm actually a lot happier using ML Dictation for the following reasons:
1) I can use the keyboard (hotkeys & shortcuts) and dictate only when I need to. I found that using Dragon Dictate and using the keyboard together caused Dragon confusion. I tried using the built in command language but I had a hard time remembering all the commands required to make Dragon do what I wanted it to do, so I ended up quitting in frustration.
2) ML seems to be surprisingly accurate. I am surprised at how accurate Dictation is using the built in microphone on my MacBook Air even when the lid is closed as I work on a secondary monitor. Granted, I do have a quiet workspace and people do tell me I have a "made for radio voice" (and a face to match I might add).
3) Can't beat the built in price of ML Dictation. I have bought 2 editions of Dragon Dictate and am currently saddled with last years model. I do appreciate the freebie apps on the iPhone and iPad and I do understand that Dragon must charge to survive, but, I have a hard time justifying the upgrade cost when a free alternative is available.

[leederr]

I have been thinking about purchasing Dragon Dictate as I find Mountain Lion Dictation awkward to use. Now, after reading the NY Times article, ....

[rondrescher]

This review does not mention the number one reason I prefer ML Dictation to Dragon: computer resources. Dragon consistently uses a significant amount of both RAM and CPU when in use, and if you're running other high usage apps, like Parallels, Safari and even Mail, you can feel a definite sluggishness in the computer. Mountain Lion dictation uses no additional resources. For this reason alone I have switched 100% of my dictation over to Mountain Lion, which I use constantly.

Another advantage is that Dragon from time to time corrupts the dictation file, rendering it useless. This is not a problem I've had with Mountain Lion.

On the other hand I do acknowledge that from time to time Apple's servers simply fail to respond, making this a hit or miss solution, but the success rate is greatly improved of late (coinciding, perhaps not coincidently, with the release of the iPhone 5 and iOS 6).

Of greatest irritation is an odd bug that Mountain lion dictation has with Apple's mail app. When dictating into every other application if Mountain lion has a question about a dictation item it produces a result with a dotted blue underline. Click immediately to the right of the underlined word and Mountain lion will present you with alternatives, one of which is generally the correct one. In the message box of Apple's Mail application, however, although the blue dotted underlined words appear, clicking to the right of the word brings forth no alternative. I've tried every possible way of trying to elicit the alternatives – right-click, left click, all function keys – but nothing seems to work. I even spent some time with the Apple genius at my nearby Apple retail store and all of us were stymied by the bug. If anyone has a solution to this problem I will be eternally grateful to hear it.

[wogsinheat]

@TeaEarleGreyHot.
Thank you for that article. I was thinking of buying Dragon. Now I won't.

[mef613]

Quote

The one thing that prevents me from using Mountain Lion Dictate is the requirement to give access to my contacts list. Maybe it comes from working in secure environments, but I do not understand that requirement.

This is because it wants to use your contacts' names so that when you use their names in dictation, they're spelled correctly. Siri on iOS (and, rumor has it, on the Mac next year) also uses your contacts to that you can "send an email to Deepak Viswanathan" or "give me directions to Bob Kennedy's home."