Nuance Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Changes to Nuance developer program will result in a flood of voice enabled apps

by Mel Martin (Sep 27th, 2011)

The company behind the Dragon speech recognition applications for computers and iOS devices has announced a new developer program that will allow software to access Dragon Voice technology at no charge. It could result in a tidal wave of apps that harness the power of the Nuance speech ...

Dragon Dictate 2.5 offers support for Microsoft Word 2011

by Steven Sande (Jul 25th, 2011)

Nuance has announced Dragon Dictate 2.5, a free upgrade to the company's Mac voice control/input app for version 2.0 customers. The new version dramatically improves mouse and keyboard entry in Microsoft Word 2011, among other features. According to Nuance, Word 2011 is the most commonly used app ...

OS X Lion introduces new, multilingual, high-quality text-to-speech voices

by Chris Rawson (Jul 24th, 2011)

First announced in March, then found in developer previews, one of the little-heralded new features of OS X Lion is its inclusion of several high-quality text-to-speech voices in 22 different languages. The last major addition to Apple's built-in OS X voices was Alex, a higher-quality voice ...

iOS 5's final release may include "Assistant" speech-to-text feature

by Chris Rawson (Jul 23rd, 2011)

Apple has included limited voice control functionality in the iPhone since the debut of the iPhone 3GS, but the company's plans for voice control in iOS 5 are reportedly far broader in application according to 9to5 Mac. While no such feature was announced at WWDC and it has yet to show up in the ...

Dragon Go! is a must-have voice search app for your iPhone

by Mel Martin (Jul 14th, 2011)

Like the proverbial genie in the bottle, you can ask a lot of Dragon Go! and have a pretty good chance of the app granting your wish. Dragon Go! is the latest free app from Nuance, creators of Dragon Dictate for the Mac and Dragon Dictation for iOS devices. In this latest app, Nuance has ...

Noterize acquired by Nuance, points to more iOS voice savvy

by Michael Rose (Jun 20th, 2011)

The popular note-taking app Noterize made the short list of apps that D7 Consulting leveraged in its iPad trial; it also made it into Apple's 'Iconic' TV ad in January. It's been absent from the App Store for a bit, though, and now we know why. TUAW has learned that Noterize has been acquired ...

Nuance buys SVOX ahead of iOS 5 release

by Mike Schramm (Jun 16th, 2011)

There's a whole trail of rumors hinting at an upcoming deal between speech recognition company Nuance and Apple. For quite a while now (ever since Apple picked up personal assistant software maker Siri), the scuttlebuzz has claimed that the folks in Cupertino would make a deal with Nuance for ...

Dragon Remote Mic lets your iPhone dictate to your PC

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Jun 13th, 2011)

Nuance's Dragon Remote Mic is now available in the App Store. It turns your iPhone into a Wi-Fi connected microphone for dictation, but buyer beware: it is compatible with Dragon Naturally Speaking for the PC, not the Dragon Dictate Mac product. Chances are, we'll see compatibility with the Mac ...

Weekend rumor roundup: Apple Retail event, new MacBook Airs, unlocked iPhones, more

by Chris Rawson (Jun 12th, 2011)

Several rumors with varying degrees of credibility came up over the weekend. According to AppleInsider, Twitter user @chronicwire (reportedly a source of past Apple leaks) reports that Apple's retail stores are setting up to launch Apple's annual Back to School promotion on Wednesday. The same ...

Why didn't we see a Nuance announcement during WWDC?

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jun 7th, 2011)

One major rumor missing from the WWDC keynote yesterday was voice control. It was just last year that Apple purchased Siri, a popular voice companion app for iOS. Apple was also rumored to be working with Nuance to offer some form of voice control in its software. References to Nuance were ...

Nuance voice samples provide a taste of Lion text-to-speech

by Steven Sande (May 17th, 2011)

As we reported on May 14, Lion Developer Preview 3 includes a number of voices from Nuance's RealSpeak Solo software that can be used for text-to-speech (TTS) operations in the OS. These voices are a good improvement on the existing voices used by Mac OS X, and could point to a greater use of ...

Nuance voices found in Lion Developer Preview 3

by Michael Grothaus (May 14th, 2011)

Yesterday, we told you that Apple had seeded Lion Developer Preview 3 to developers. We noted at the time that among the new features in Developer Preview 3 were a new boot animation, new graphical elements in the Finder's toolbar, new desktop wallpapers and that Reading List is now enabled in ...

Nuance-like Apple speech recognition patent emerges

by Michael Grothaus (May 14th, 2011)

Rumors have been flying that Apple has entered into some kind of agreement with speech recognition company Nuance. Now Patently Apple has published an Apple patent that shows a possible use for Nuance's technology in the iPhone. The patent covers text-to-speech and speech-to-text conversion. ...

Apple-Nuance deal may take root in NC datacenter

by Michael Rose (May 9th, 2011)

The stars appear to have aligned for the rumored Apple-Nuance deal, according to TechCrunch. The suggested strategic partnership between the Cupertino tech giant and the Burlington, MA speech-savvy software firm may find its first expression in Apple's new North Carolina data center, per the ...

Is a Nuance and Apple deal in the works?

by Michael Grothaus (May 7th, 2011)

TechCrunch is reporting that Apple is in the process of some sort of deal with Nuance Communications, one of the leading companies in the field of speech recognition. Many readers may be familiar with Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking software, however the Dragon speech engine is also licensed and ...