[MV] ViaVoice vs iListen

[Jonathan Greene]

I had no idea I was going to open such can of worms...

I think you've raised good points and certainly things I've noticed 
even after such short time in iListen. The flexibility though to speak 
anywhere with iListen and have it work efficiently is in my opinion a 
serious advantage. I'm not a real fan of having to use SpeakPad all the 
time. I guess it's good that there's a choice in this voice recognition 
environment of ours.



On Friday, February 7, 2003, at 01:32 AM, T. Patrick Henebry wrote:

>> By the way... I switched to iListen today, after using via voice for 
>> the last week (I actually used in many months ago as well) and can't 
>> believe the difference in how well iListen responds on my computer. 
>> The only real thing viavoice has over iListen is integration of 
>> command and dictation in a relatively seamless manner.
>
> I would *strongly* disagree with that statement.  While it's true that 
> ViaVoice requires more powerful hardware to run decently ViaVoice does 
> have advantages over iListen.
>
> With iListen editing by voice is very cumbersome and frequently 
> scrambles your text (A typing speed slider similar to the correction 
> speed slider should solve most of the scrambling problems; but editing 
> by voice will still be more cumbersome in iListen.)  But if you don't 
> edit by voice your text will be scrambled anyway the next time you 
> make a correction.  So you end up dictating your document and make 
> your corrections, committing those corrections, then doing any editing 
> by hand to avoid a screwed up document.  With ViaVoice (provided I'm 
> dictating into SpeakPad I can dictate or edit/revise, a document by 
> voice without having to either switch between modes or worry about 
> scrambled text.  I can also make corrections (by voice if desired) 
> without possibly scrambling my text.
>
> Text entered by either spelling mode or text macros is not tracked; 
> which means AGAIN your text can possibly get scrambled.  Issuing the 
> commit corrections command right after using either a text macro or 
> the spelling mode will prevent this but causes other difficulties. 
> Text macros and spelling mode in ViaVoice do not have these problems.
>
> It can be *extremely* difficult if not impossible to train iListen on 
> unusually spelled words. either add unusually words individually and 
> train them (including typing a sound alike alternative and recording 
> your pronunciation) or you can have ViaVoice analyze a document for 
> new words and add/train them in a batch.  You can also add/train 
> entire phrases with ViaVoice if you encounter a particularly difficult 
> recognition problem.  I have *never* encountered something I could not 
> train in ViaVoice for Mac OS X in almost a year of use. iListen has 
> been another story entirely. iListen desperately needs some sort of 
> phonetic training ability.
>
> If you want to create a voice command in iListen you *must* use 
> AppleScript as there is no way to create keystroke macros.  With 
> ViaVoice you can create keystroke macros or use AppleScript--which 
> means users need not learn AppleScript if they don't want to.  It also 
> means ViaVoice can control an nonscriptable application by voice.
>
> ViaVoice allows the user to save both their document *and* the 
> dictation session data.  which means you can save your work, go on to 
> other things and then return to that document later and still be able 
> to dictate, edit, or make corrections  anywhere within the document by 
> voice.  iListen cannot do this.
>
> On the right hardware ViaVoice is more accurate.  True, it can go deaf 
> at times; but if you are working in SpeakPad you can save the document 
> and session data then exit the program then restart the program, 
> reload your work and resume.
>
> Now to be fair iListen has some advantages over ViaVoice which make it 
> the better choice for some people/situations  You can dictate or 
> correct *anywhere*.  iListen also supports digital recorders. iListen 
> runs far better on slower G3 hardware than does ViaVoice.
>
> ilisten was the first speech recognition program to be supported under 
> Jaguar--and until some recently released updates by both Apple and IBM 
> using ViaVoice under Jaguar could be a royal PITA.  So until those 
> updates were released I was very glad at times I had iListen > available.
>
> Each program has its own strengths and weaknesses.  But to say 
> ViaVoice has no more to offer over iListen than seamless command 
> integration is just plain wrong.
> -- 
> ----------
> T. Patrick Henebry
>
> ----------
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