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Before I start this review I have a confession to make; I hate typing! I am not the fastest typist and I tend to make more mistakes than I care to admit to. So when MacSpeech offered me the opportunity to review their MacSpeech Dictate software I jumped at the opportunity.
For those who have never used speech recognition software you’ll be quite amazed with the accuracy of this program. Besides dictation MacSpeech Dictate performs menu commands such as opening programs, positioning the cursor and activating shortcuts. Words not known to the program can be easily added using the vocabulary editor.
According to the company the 1.5 version improves the accuracy rate 20% from the previous version. With the recent release of Snow Leopard, MacSpeech has a free update allowing better integration with the new Mac OS.
I wanted to wait until the release of Snow Leopard before writing this review and am happy to say that software works perfectly with Apple’s shiny new OS. In fact I did not have any problems running version 1.5 with Snow Leopard but version 1.5.5 is the recommended on for the use with OS X 10.6.
MacSpeech Dictate is one of those software programs that you wonder how you ever got along without. Now that I’ve used it for the past several months I cannot imagine life on my MacBook Pro without it. The accuracy and ease of use is quite astonishing.
For Tomas's full review, visit:
http://www.testfreaks.com/blog/review/macspeech-dictate/
For Charles W. Moore's Applelinks recent review of MAcSpeech 1.5.1 (on Leopard) visit here:
http://www.applelinks.com/index.php/more/charles_moore_reviews_macspeech_dictate_151/
The MacSpeech Dictate 1.5.5 update addresses several minor functional and cosmetic issues when used with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. All MacSpeech Dictate products, including MacSpeech Dictate Legal, MacSpeech Dictate Medical, MacSpeech Dictate International and MacSpeech Dictate localized in German, French and Italian can update to version 1.5.5 for free. MacSpeech Dictate 1.5.5 adds a contextual menu for the Available Commands window, providing options to Edit, Execute, and Copy Description to Clipboard, and is also a maintenance release that fixes other reported issues.
New in version 1.5.5:
Additions:
• Context menu for Available Commands window: Edit, Execute, and Copy Description to Clipboard.
• Message to crash emails about the email not going to Technical Support directly.
Changes:
• Font in Available Commands Window to Helvetica Oblique to remedy minimal font installations.
• Address Books with more than 900 (approx.) entries will have the Email Commands generation turned off to avoid resource issues.
• Selection Commands now show under Status window in the Recognized Text area.
Fixed:
• Menu mapping for apps bundled with Snow Leopard updated for the new versions
• Commands with different context from Leopard to Snow Leopard
• Issues with documents crashing while Caching or Closing
• Versioning of Commands sets
• Crash when pasting text into documents that have been cached
• Empty dialog when exporting "nothing" from the Vocabulary Editor
• Some Engine words not displaying properly in Training dialog
• Retain cursor location in document after Cache Document is used
• License key not always copied to proper location after License Key Validation
• Crash when highlighting and moving text in a cached area
• Turned off Spoken Alerts except for VoiceOver users
Crashing when users edited or navigated with mouse in some situations (not perfected just better)
• Better handling of upper level Excel documents. Working within cells still requires use of Purge Cache while navigating
System Requirements:
Intel-based Mac with Mac OS X 10.5.6 (Leopard) through Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). Internet connection required for product registration. MacSpeech-certified noise-canceling microphone (included with new purchase).
The MacSpeech Dictate 1.5.5 update is available free of charge to registered MacSpeech Dictate 1.5 customers using the "Check for Updates" feature. Detailed information on all of the changes and enhancements can be found at:
http://www.macspeech.com/releasenotes/
MacSpeech Dictate is the only desktop speech recognition solution for the Macintosh. MacSpeech Dictate provides unprecedented speech recognition accuracy with minimal training and works with existing Mac applications. MacSpeech Dictate delivers a true Mac user experience, and conforms to behaviors already familiar to Macintosh fans worldwide. Beyond dictation, MacSpeech Dictate lets people perform basic navigation of their Mac and control it with their voice to launch applications, open new windows, execute menu commands, etc.
System Requirements:
MacSpeech Dictate requires Intel-based Macintosh hardware and requires Mac OS X 10.5.6 Leopard through Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
New MacSpeech Dictate solutions, with a choice of headsets, are available today starting at US$199. Registered customers of MacSpeech Dictate are eligible to purchase MacSpeech Dictate 1.5 at special upgrade price of US$54.95. People interested in an upgrade should note that MacSpeech Dictate 1.5 does not run on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Anyone who registered MacSpeech Dictate on or after April 1, 2009 is eligible to receive a free upgrade directly from MacSpeech, Inc.
MacSpeech Dictate Legal, MacSpeech Dictate Medical, MacSpeech Dictate International and an assortment of headset and microphone upgrades certified for use with MacSpeech Dictate are also available directly from MacSpeech, Inc. at:
http://www.macspeech.com/
MacSpeech Dictate is currently available at http://www.macspeech.com/ in the U.S., at http://www.macspeech.co.uk in the U.K., and in other countries through International resellers and distributors listed at:
http://www.macspeech.com/resellers/
Further information on MacSpeech can be found at:
http://www.macspeech.com/
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