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MacSpeech releases Dictate, wins Best of Show

by Mat Lu Jan 16th 2008 at 7:30PM

For some time now speech recognition on the Mac has lagged behind Windows, particularly Dragon Naturally Speaking. Well, no more, as MacSpeech, developer of iListen for the Mac, has managed to license the Dragon engine from maker Nuance for the new MacSpeech Dictate announced at Macworld.

In addition to standard speech recognition and transcription into various applications like Word and Pages, Dictate also allows you to control your Mac by voice including support for Automator and AppleScript. According to our man on the show floor, it's impressive enough that it has won a Best of Show award.

MacSpeech Dictate will be available on February 15 for Intel Macs starting at $199, and registered users of iListen will be able to crossgrade for $99 unless purchased in 2008, in which case it will be $29 (iListen has been discontinued).

Update: A press release has been issued with more specifics on pricing. The crossgrade price for iListen users is actually $99; the $29 crossgrade is only available until April 15 to people who purchased iListen in 2008.

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For some time now speech recognition on the Mac has lagged behind Windows, particularly Dragon Naturally Speaking. Well, no more, as...
 

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Rick Martin

I have both NS9 pro and iListen 1.8 .. iListen just sucked and I have no confidence in anything Macspeech says ... and if this does not have a read back ... not play back but read back ... then it's crap ... play back is your voice, what good is that? Read back is the computer reading what it put on the paper! Big difference! NS9 has it! If you go on their web site, even now, they are still have the fake testmonials about 99 percent accuracy with iListen ... but I pre bought a copy of Dictate, ... I'm a fool, fool me twice! Now does anyone want to talk about another piece of crap called called .... Inkwell! I did a side by side (2.2gh/4GB ram Leopard macbook, piece of crap HP Pavilion 1.6/2GB ram) with my intous 3 ... the vista hand recognition rocks and inkwell ... it's insulting!

February 06 2008 at 7:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rodney & Susan Reynar

I don't know what everyone is complaining about. I've used iListen for a number of years and, while not perfect, it was a good and steady product if you took the time to learn how to use it. I consistently got accuracy rates in the high 90s.

I'm very much looking forward to getting a copy of Dictate...and, come on, $29 is pocket change today.

January 28 2008 at 11:47 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Greig

The $29 crossgrade price only seems to apply if you bought iListen (which I also abandoned in total frustration) during 2008. Otherwise it's $99. The press release on the site says:

Registered customers of iListen will be eligible to purchase MacSpeech Dictate a special crossgrade price of US$99.

Upon distribution of MacSpeech Dictate to retail outlets, the iListen product will be immediately discontinued. Anyone who purchased the MacSpeech product, iListen, in 2008, can crossgrade to MacSpeech Dictate for US$29 through April 15, 2008.

January 17 2008 at 5:27 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Greig's comment
paul turner

Guys this is real crappy. My purchase was 11/30/07 and directly from MacSpeech. There was now mention of the product being discontinued and or upgrade at that time. Like I said it's crappy on their part.

Let's see if anyone reads this from MacSpeech and makes and effort to contact us as registered customers and make this right.

January 17 2008 at 1:43 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
The Apple Doctor

Paul,

After I left my comment to you, I called the Apple Store where I bought iLsten from on 12/15/07, I talked to the manager who I expected to tell me "Sorry, it's open, we can't take it back." Nope, she told me to bring it back for a full refund. I think that MacSpeech is being TOTALLY UNFAIR to it's customers. You can't tell me that they didn't know they were going to do this LAST SUMMER('07). Their Crossgrade policy is total C--P. It makes me wonder if I can trust MacSpeech if I were to buy it at the new price!

January 18 2008 at 1:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
The Apple Doctor

Hey, Paul, you should have seen MY face today when I came upon the MacSpeech booth at MacWorld and saw the new box for Dictate!! I too bought iListen from my local Apple Store on December 15th, 2007. I inquired at the booth about iListen and was told that is now OBSOLETE!?! I'll be damned if I'm going to spend an ADDITIONAL $29 bucks when these should have been pulled from the shelves last month!!

I hope you're listening, MacSpeech!!
Treat your new customers fairly!!

January 17 2008 at 3:23 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to The Apple Doctor's comment
lucas

Paul were you able to try out Dictate at the MacSpeech booth? I'm really curious how it does and what sort of voice-navigation it has. I have a feeling sentiments like yours and of those on this thread are hardly unique :( I, too, bought into the hope that iListen was "good" and was disappointed beyond belief. The only thing "Mac" about it was that it works like it was still stuck in OS 9. I really wish that MacSpeech would be more upfront about what it can/can't do rather than always being so vague about capabilities and hiding a lot of the real specs deep within their website.

Anyhow, I'm really hoping that this is more than just a dictation tool. While I don't doubt that voice dictation is an important part of a speech recognition software, it is only 50% of the equation. Most people who need this software will also have a need for moving and navigating around the computer using voice recognition software. So, without a decent way to navigate around (like in iListen... OMG what a nightmare it was to do the simplest of navigation!) it is dead in the water.

I really really really want to believe... please deliver. I'll be the first to buy.

January 17 2008 at 9:05 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
8CoreWhore

What is their return policy? if it's 30 days, get a refund!

January 18 2008 at 5:27 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Klemens

Thank God.
This was the only thing that kept my dad from switching. But they'll first have to make it avaliable in German.
Which they will.
Hopefully.

January 17 2008 at 2:39 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Klemens's comment
Klemens

Hey, by the way TUAW,
If you meet those folks on the showfloor, would you mind asking them if/when they are planning to roll out the German version?
That would be very helpful to me. Thanks :)

January 17 2008 at 2:43 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
paul turner

I purchase iListen because I thought that it would rock on my 2.6ghz 4gig ram Macbook Pro - IT IS A DOG. It looks and ran like mid 90's System 7 software from my old Powerbook 540c. It took forever to initialize - so much so it was just quicker to type. I purchased version 1.7 and was excited less than a week later when 1.8 came out (which was fully Leopard compatible - whatever guys)... it was still a dog. I guess I could have got a refund but even as crappy as it was, it was the only Mac option. Obviously they have realized this too and discontinued it for the new engine. It stings that I have to pay another 26 bucks when I only just purchased the "latest" version a month ago.

January 16 2008 at 11:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to paul turner's comment
The Apple Doctor

Paul,
See my reply farther down.

Steven

January 17 2008 at 3:28 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Andrew

Considering that this uses the DNS engine, I predict that this will be about as accurate as DNS. I will gladly buy it if it is.

January 16 2008 at 9:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris Newton

I was very unimpressed with ilisten. I have a very, very slight souther drawl, and it can't understand half of the stuff I say, even though I've trained the bejesus out of it. Maybe James Earl Jones could get use out of it, but I certainly can't. I'll probably shoot myself in the foot and buy this crossgrade, but I'll be stunned if it really is heads & tails above ilisten.

January 16 2008 at 8:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Chris Newton's comment
sys_ops911

It's a completely different engine - I'll be surprised if it isn't, having used DNS on XP and iListen (for about a day) before throwing it away on OS X. Honestly I wanted my money back for iListen - and i RARELY feel like that.. POS.

January 17 2008 at 1:13 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
lucas

This would be an excellent time to do a comparison of Dragon Naturally Speaking vs. Dictate, TUAW...hint hint... I have used DNS on Windows and I have a copy of iListen that's sitting collecting dust in the closet (yes, it's THAT bad). I really really am excited about this news and hope that Dictate will also have all the voice navigation/control features similar to DNS. Otherwise it's a no go. I really really really wanted to like iListen but it was just beyond bad :(

January 16 2008 at 8:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rodan

This is incredibly wonderful news. I had been considering iListen, but from what I read it paled in comparison to Dragon. I would like to wait and see how well it is implemented, but I'm really looking forward to this product. I had been wondering why there are so few speech recognition options for the Mac, and while this doesn't answer that question, at least there will be something decent now.

January 16 2008 at 8:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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