[MV] Re: Panther, ViaVoice & iListen

[Erika Mackenzie]

| If expecting a reply, please read my signature. |


Martin Markoe spake thus:


>Erica,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>I would rather support a small, Mac-focussed company than a behemoth like
>IBM any day
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>Do know the old saying, "Be careful what you wish for, as it may come true?"

Indeed I do.
>
>Large companies often have resources that smaller companies do not. Although
>smaller companies may be more innovative they do not have the manpower or
>money to pull off innovative software/hardware development.

I have always assumed that that was the reason for the far more polished and 'professional' package which was ViaVoice.

> I suggest you look at all sides of an issue before making a judgment.

I expressed a preference, and an ethical preferenc at that; not the same thing as making a judgement. The reason I purchased ViaVoice instead of iListen was that iListen was not available for OS X and ViaVoice was. Disabled as I was, I couldn't afford to wait. Now I will have to fork out again, this time for iListen, as the tables have turned. I just hope that by the time I am able to afford it, It will have improved to the extent that using it won't drive me barmy as it did before.

I purchased ViaVoice almost as soon as it came out for MacOS X, and used it for a long time, and still prefer it to iListen in many ways (most ways, in fact). I don't use it any more, as it will no longer install and run on my machine, despite patches and endless tech support. I used iListen for a while on someone else's computer, but I don't have a copy. I liked the way I could use SpeakPad in ViaVoice as a scratchpad - edit...change...delete...cut and paste...rewrite bits...start all over again etc. without having to think about how to get the programme to 'recognise' and keep up with my thought processes as I composed. ViaVoice handled it all without a glitch, and without all that text-scrambling, 'Commit Corrections' (ummm...should I or shouldn't I?) and complexity which iListen was prone to - I feel that dictating *and correcting* in any application (for ViaVoice could always dictate into any application) has come at far too high a price (and this is something of an illusion any
way; one does not correct in any application, but in the 'correction window'). In contrast to ViaVoice and SpeakPad, editing and altering wording in iListen with the correction window was such a pain that I just never bothered to use the correction window while I had access to it. I did not like ViaVoice's slowness and its massive demands on my computer's RAM and processor; iListen is much nippier and didn't eat into RAM and VM. Nor do I (or rather did I) like ViaVoive's precarious 'poor relation' status compared with the MSWindows version (and of course its current 'orphaned' status makes it a complete dead end). Nevertheless, I stand by what I say, taken as an isolated statement; I *would* rather support a small, dedicated, Mac-focussed company than a behemoth like IBM. The unwritten subtext should have been: "I just wish I liked their product as much as I liked IBM's".

best,

Erica Mackenzie
QLD, AUSTRALIA

n.b. I suffer from a neurological auto-immune disorder which sometimes prevents me from using my computer for extended periods of time. I will get back to you when I can, if I can. Awl arrows of grammar, punctuation , spieling and  suchlike can hand shooed be blamed without exception own my speech-recognition/dictation soft wear <g>.