[MV] Nuance Dictate

[Frank Flynn]

On Apr 15, 2011, at 5:55 PM, Randy B. Singer wrote:

> I find it surprising that so many users seem to love Nuance Dragon Dictate.  On this very list there used to be a bunch of folks who had serious reservations about iListen.

I am a casual user.  I owned Via Voice for mac and now I own Dragon Dictate for mac.  I have never used the PC versions of either.

I find Nuance sales irritating.  I have never needed technical support.  But they require you to register the product and send in your phone number then they will call you and try to up sell you.  If there is a pay for upgrade expect a phone call from a highly motivated sales person.

It is also very difficult to move the application from one Mac to another.  I do appreciate anti-piracy concerns but this is the most difficult application to move of all that I own - and I own a lot.

The product works as well as Via Voice, maybe better (certainly better since VV will not work on a modern Mac OS).  I have had both VV and DD crash on me and loose the document I was working on but it is a very rare occurrence.   DD can get messed up where the accuracy goes way down perhaps this is just me adjusting the Mic strangely.  I can usually fix this by restarting, adjusting the Mic making sure all around me is quiet.  Which one is key?  Who knows I'm not doing their QA.

But for long documents, or dictation like tasks it works fairly well, not perfectly but I'm not a perfect typist either.

Not a condemnation but not a ringing endorsement either.

Frank