“Dictating to your computer and having the words typed for you seems like a great way to work, doesn’t it? ” Kirk McElhearn writes for Macworld. “You could just sit back, put your feet up, and blab away, instead of hunching over your keyboard and typing. If you’re a fast typist, dictation could be more relaxing; if you use the hunt and peck method, you’d save a lot of time and energy.”
“There are two powerful dictation solutions for OS X: The dictation tools built right into OS X Mountain Lion and Nuance’s Dragon Dictate,” McElhearn writes. “There’s a big difference between the two in price: Mountain Lion’s dictation feature is free with the OS, while Dragon Dictate will set you back $200. But that isn’t the only difference.”
McElhearn writes, “Mountain Lion’s dictation feature can be very useful if you to dictate occasionally. It’s great for dictating emails, instant messages, tweets, Facebook posts and the like. If you don’t mind editing your texts frequently, you can do a lot with this feature, and save time. However, a good microphone will deliver far more accurate results.”
Advertisement: Ultimate Combo: Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 + Bluetooth Headset
“If, however, you want to dictate regularly, for more than short, occasional texts, Dragon Dictate is the way to go,” McElhearn writes. “The program learns from what you say and from your corrections, improving its accuracy over time, and also allows you to edit text using your voice, to control applications and much more.”
Much more in the full article here.
I recently purchased the Windows version of Dragon Dictate for a third of the price of the Mac version.
I loaded BootCamp/Windows 7 on my Mac Mini, and found the accuracy of the Windows version to be extremely reliable.
I wouldn’t be the first person to suggest that Apple should purchase Nuance.
I find that the new Dragon Dictate for Mac is a quantum leap. But, spinal tap is right. The PC version costs 50% of what the Mac version does.
Since when has anybody been unaware that Apple’s 30% margins are not commonly carried over to 3rd party stuff?
Besides, Nuance has been developing for Windows longer and can spread the cost over a significantly larger installed base.
Used Dragon 2, upgraded to 3 and it is much better. Part of the difference between Nuance SW capabilities on Mac and Windows has to do with 3rd party access to OS functions. More an Apple issue than a Nuance issue.
Dragon has been around for a LONG time. You would expect it to be a more mature product. Give Apple a few years to work on it and it’ll be a Dragon killer….
Nuance bought MacSpeech some time back which should have given it a different code base to incorporate with its superior speech program. Or were they simply getting rid of a competitor and ignored all that MacSpeech had done after that.