Dragon Dictate for Mac now available
That didn't take long. Earlier this year, Nuance Communications took over the MacSpeech product, with the intention of improving what was already a good application.
That has now been accomplished, and today Dragon Dictate is available for the Macintosh platform -- a reasonably priced upgrade for MacSpeech users.
The new version offers easier editing, the ability to switch between different microphones, and it uses a computer voice to proofread your dictated documents. The speech engine has been updated to new state-of-the-art technology.
It's nice to see speech recognition on the Mac that finally has feature parity with the PC versions. There are some nice new and unexpected features like saying 'search Google for Greek restaurants', and you can do a Spotlight search by voice.
You can order Dragon Dictate now for the Mac for US$199.99; that's for a boxed version that should ship by October 1. The price includes a USB headset. Owners of the current MacSpeech can upgrade for $49.99. MacSpeech users who are registered should be getting an e-mail with all the upgrade information. The upgrade can be downloaded, but beware, it is a 1.3 GB file.
I just received the software and will be putting it through its paces over the next few days and have a detailed review soon. I was able to dictate this review using Dragon Dictate with no issues.
Dragon Dictate requires an Intel-based Mac with Snow Leopard and an Internet connection for registration. The software will work with a variety of microphones, but you want something that has pretty good quality and good noise cancellation.
