Not only can Dictate 3 now control your computer and accept long voice-based dictations without an Internet connection, it can also transcribe audio files for you, too. According to Nuance, Dictate 3 "inherits the accuracy boost" that came with the core technologies applied to Dragon 12 for Windows. The company says Mac users can expect to see a 15 percent accuracy boost over Dictate 2.
The company has also added Smart Format Rules, which allows users to customize their use of abbreviations, numbers, and other formatting so that the dictated text comes out the way you want it to in the future.
New in Dragon 3 is the ability to correct errors using speech as well, and the company says it's offering a wider range of alternative word choices when it comes to making corrections that the software will remember for future use cases. The most significant new feature is the software's newfound ability to transcribe recorded audio files into text form. Nuance did and still does offer a separate product called MacSpeech Scribe that comes with similar features, but according to Nuance's Chief Marketing Officer Peter Mahoney, the two products address different types of user needs.
It allows you to create a special version of the profile that understands recorded audio, and it'll transcribe your audio from there.
So, while Dictate 3 may not be the best tool to transcribe a recorded interview with another person, it seems appropriate for more personal tasks, like putting your own recorded voice notes into an easily readable format. Considering the price of the software is remaining the same despite the addition of several new features, it's hard to complain about limitations on multi-person transcriptions. There are some other new features as well, such as support for 16kHz wide-band Bluetooth instead of the previous 8kHz audio.
Mahoney pointed out that a "meaningful percentage of users" use a Bluetooth headset with Dragon already—he knows this because many of them buy their Bluetooth headsets through Nuance itself—and the upgraded Bluetooth will allow the software to make use of a higher quality audio signal.
For those who are new to the software, Dragon Dictate 3 now comes with interactive tutorials to help get people started on the right foot, complete with actual lessons not just a help menu item. The advantages that Dragon offers over Mountain Lion's built-in dictation software aren't trivial, either.
Mountain Lion's version depends on an Internet connection to do its voice-to-text processing on Apple's servers, while Dragon runs locally on your Mac with or without an Internet connection. Dragon also allows you to control your Mac using your voice—you can open and switch between applications easily without touching a mouse or trackpad—while Mountain Lion only allows you to enter content into designated text-entry areas.
Along with the Dictate 3 announcement, Nuance introduced its Android app to complement the company's already existing iOS offerings. Nuance says you can use the apps to act as a microphone for Dictate 3 on your Mac, or simply use them to record notes to be transcribed by the software later. You must login or create an account to comment. Skip to main content OS X Mountain Lion may come with its own voice dictation capabilities, but Nuance is doing its part to stay ahead of the game with the release of Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac.
Jacqui Cheng Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Email jacqui arstechnica. Now you are tempting me to not go through this huge hassle and just go for Dragon 2 Dictate. But for MP3 recording you also say that as second program Macspeech is required. Appreciate your input. No, I would definitely go for the Mac version rather than running parallels. Editing is not really a problem at all.
I was having some issues and I sent a message to the support team and I they got back to me rather quickly telling me to delete some preference files which I did and it fixed everything up, and they got back to me within 24 hours.
To me, the worst problem is that sometimes Dragon dictate loses audio after the computer sleeps and wakes up. But having to boot Windows every time you wanted to run Mac speech would be a far bigger hassle then that. There is no doubt that the current Dragon dictate is behind the PC version, maybe five or 10 years, but the PC version was pretty darn good five or 10 years ago, and the Mac version will keep getting better — the upgrades so far have shown this.
I have only tried Dragon Dictate where you speak directly into the computer. I have been using Dragon for years. I have 10 and 11 is out. Have you tried Dragon with the Mac windows app and it did not work, or do you just not like the idea?
You could check out the dragon forums to see if people have been successful in doing it, I heard there were some problems with the audio quality but there may be a way round that. As a Dragon Naturally Speaking User and long-time Windows user about to buy an Apple iMac for the first time, your article was invaluable — thank you.
Does MacSpeech Dictate have those book extracts that get you up and running on a PC after a few hours? Yes it has the readings, probably about 20 minutes worth to get you going, then extras to improve accuracy. Oh — and I too want to know if Dragon which I already have will work in a Mac Windows partition, or whether MacSpeech which I would have to buy is my only option. It would be a hassle to have to boot your computer into windows every time you wanted to use speech recognition.
You would probably lose things like being able to dictate directly into all your applications, having hot keys to turn the microphone on and off and so on. I write reports for a living and It works well. This seems to be getting better though. It will be nice if it boots up straight away […]. Dragon Dictate 2 is now available for download. Bummer, the program remains fatally crippled. Reading above, in the new Dragon for Mac Could you elaborate a bit, please? Well, if you use the built in text editor, it works fine to do both.
This works fine. So it seems to me that the problem lies if you edit manually and then try to select with speech. Why is the Mac version so much more expensive? Name required. Mail will not be published required. Jul Dragon Dictate Released! Dragon 5 — How to get a special price. Newer Comments ». Sam says:. April 29, at am. May 1, at pm. How to dictate into your Macintosh Macintosh How To says:. November 18, at pm.
March 24, at pm. April 19, at am. Dieter says:. May 12, at pm. August 11, at am. August 11, at pm. He then worked as a freelance writer with credits including national newspapers, magazines and online work. He specializes in technology and communications. Regardless of how old we are, we never stop learning.
Classroom is the educational resource for people of all ages. Based on the Word Net lexical database for the English Language. See disclaimer. About the Author A professional writer since with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism, John Lister ran the press department for the Plain English Campaign until
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