[Macworld]

Post your comments for MacSpeech Dictate offers new phrase training here

[medengineer]

This has been the most disappointing program, I spend $200 for this + the microphone and it crashes on
startup. Tech support has been useless. There is no way to access the update.

I had high hopes for this program but now I just feel cheated.

[ab0si]

To medengineer: Indeed.
I wonder if, unlike v 1, version 2.0 actually works. I do not wonder $200 worth.
I've used Dragon on the Windoze side of the universe productively for several years. Too bad, they leased their engine to MacIWishItWouldSpeech instead of doing OS X themselves.

[rufo]

I installed MacSpeech Dictate about two months ago for a client with rather high standards. It wasn't without some trepidation after hearing all the bad things about it, but to my amazement it seems to be a fairly well-put-together piece of software, and he's had nothing but good things to say about Dictate. If it crashed or had major problems, I would certainly have heard about it by now.
I know they had problems with bad discs from their duplicator in the past that caused lots of random crashing issues; perhaps the posters above need to double-check their data with the utility available from MacSpeech's website?

[medengineer]

I have gotten all their updated disc's but still the program crashes on startup.
They have now way to download the update with a crashed program.
Just a waste of $200 at this point.

[pritchet1]

Medengineer;
Please check your RAM and is your mic an "authorized" mic?
Which Mac are you using and which version of Mac OS X?

[pwwwayne]

I was a huge fan of IBM's ViaVoice until it went extinct. I never got iListen to function.

So with trepidation I got MacSpeech Dictate and have been using it since first release. (I was influenced by MacWorld's glowing review!).

I have managed to muddle along usefully - the biggest problem being to get it to learn even ordinary words: It never learned "envy" or "destruction" or "persecutory" etc. e.g.

Today I downloaded the new release, installed easily, and the results have been nothing short of dramatic! It learned the load of words it had refused to recognize! Correction is much easier. There are new features I have yet to try.

I feel quite comfortable recommending it now -- I couldn't before this release.

I never got their whole package -- just the application. I have a Logitech AK5370 microphone that works very well.

[chuckewe]

Hear Hear. The marketing with it's reference to Nuance's Dragon Dictate, led me to beleive this would be a stable, mature product, with the same capabilities of Dragon Dictate. From day one, the program has been nothing but a nightmare. I was one of the fortunate who puchased mine from an Apple store, AFTER Macspeech was aware of the bad disk problem, yet, instead of pulling the bad disks, or at least letting the Apple people know there was a problem, and the buyer would need to order a new disc, I spent hours on a weekend, (when tech support was closed of course) trying to get the program loaded. On the following Monday I recieved an email from tech support telling me that many of their discs were bad, and they'd get one right out to me. Right, that process took over a week, and they sent it 1st class mail



If that had been the only problem maybe I could have lived with it. But once I got it working, it was at best a beta level program with a price of $200. No correction of words or inserting words the program didn't have. Basically it was useless.



I loaded VMFusion, loaded XP and Nuance's Dragon Dictate, and never looked back.

[Mississauga]

chuckewe,
What's the point, if one cannot dictate into Mac apps?
I guess the fact Macs only make up 5%+/- of the global computer market continues to leave us wanting something GOOD!

[ab0si]

What's the point? Well, some of us really like/need dictation software.

While it would be nice to live in a single OS, some times it is not possible unless I want that single OS to be Windows. When I am writing as opposed to formatting or designing, the OS (or even the application) really does not make a lot of difference to me. Given the choice, I'd probably still be using XyWrite or WordPerfect for DOS but I am older than dirt. Due to nerve damage, typing is not all the easy for me, so dictation software makes my life much easier and improves my productivity. I also do some on-line teaching and the ability to dictate during live "chat" sessions is almost a necessity.

If reliable dictation software existed for OS X, I would not have to boot up Windows. Maybe Dictate 2.0 will actually work, but I am going to wait a bit rather have my hopes crushed, my life ruined and any remaining joy squeezed out of this worn out shell. Is that over the top enough?

Paul

[chuckewe]

With VMFusion, I can dictate into what I need the most, a wordprocessing program. I write legal briefs and Memos. The program I write to isn't relevant as to which operating system I'm using. The program is relevant for being able to dicate long memos, insert via voice words like people's last names, in multpage documents, to give easy voice commands, like BOLD, End, New Parapgraph, Tab, Insert, thus saving me hours of repeative editing.

To me, that is more important than saying close Iworks or open Iphoto. The name of the program is MacSpeech Dictate, not MacApp command.

[TheMadCow]

There sure a lot of whining users that supposedly can't or won't RTFM. The program works exactly as named. It's a functional voice dictation application that works pretty darn good. I've worked with VC apps on the Mac since day one, this one actually delivers the promise.
The following caveats apply to those who think it's going to be like Scotty picking up the mouse and talking into it:
1. You HAVE to train it. And once you've trained it, you HAVE to be consistent. Granted, not as bad as it used to be with ViaVoice - but you can't train with one voice and then get all drama queen while dictating and expect it to work.
2. Get a GOOD microphone. It will make all the difference in the world. Don't use your Bluetooth headset for your phone, don't use the built in Microphone. Get a GOOD microphone.
3. The whole disk fiasco, get over it. It happens, it's not a personal slight. You're not "out $200", you're out a phone call to an 800 number to have them ship you FREE replacements. The company is a small one and they're very responsive to customer service issues. That's a Good Thing®.
4. While it can "control your Mac", it's not amazingly good at it. It works - most of the time and with a minimum of frustration. But it's still cranky. It's a dictation app, not a control app.
Bottom line? It's a growing product that's come a long way since v1.0. The company is obviously dedicated to supporting this application and seeing it grow. It's only going to get better. If you're considering this for dictation, it's a great app.
(And no, I'm not an employee or have any interest in the company)

[ab0si]

MadCow:

You make some good points.

I am sure that a great deal of my discontent with the product is comparing it to a program I've use successfully for a number of years: Dragon Naturally Speaking. Comparing the current version of Dragon to the current version of Dictate might be unfair (a version 2.0 product compared to a fully mature product), but each is best in class for the platform it supports. The difference if enough so that I boot up Windows when I have serious composing to do. trust me when I say that if I never had to do that again, I'd be a very happy camper. I hope that user reviews of version 2.0 will indicate that it is stable and reasonably effective. That will reduce to two the programs I need to use under Windows (not counting cranking up Internet Explorer to see how in renders web pages).

Paul

[chuckewe]

Their commitement to improve the product is wonderful. However, $200 for a not ready for primetime beta program is not commendable.

I use the microphone that came with the product, just as instructed. I've "trained" the software per the manual. I've retrained the software. For simple dictation, using only words it's in library, its passible. However, because of the licensing of the Nuance's engine, I expected the program to be more mature, and have similar features.

The most glaring weakness of the program is once again, you cannot teach it any words. NO NEW WORDS. That makes the program almost useless for those of us who people's names, cities, street names, and such in the course of our daily work. Nor can you teach the software no matter how much you train it, to learn how you speak certain words that are a part of the training process.

If this was a shareware program, with a price point of $39.95 to $69.95, while the developer improved the features, I'd probably have no complaints.

Imagaine if you purchased a program which advertised as it's selling point, Adobe's Photoshop, but didn't have layers, or resize, or save to another format, and you had paid $200 for for it. When you purchased the product and found out it didn't have even have these most basic features, and you complained to the developer, and their response was "we'll be improving our product, just wait" what would your attitude be? When you request a refund, and told since you've opened it, you own it. despite the company knowing that because of the bad discs, you never had the opportunity to load the program, would your view of the company be favorable?

If so, you should never complain about Windows Vista.