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| From: MacSpeech, Inc.
List Price: $199.99
Buy New: $162.98
You Save: $37.01 (19%)
New (17) Used (1) from $162.98
Rating:  77 reviews
Sales Rank: 30
Format: Cd-rom
Platform: Mac Os X Intel
Media: CD-ROM
Edition: Standard
Operating System: Mac OS X
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.9 x 2.5
MPN: MSDICTATE
Model: MACSPEECH DICTATE
UPC: 806709380876
EAN: 0806709380876
ASIN: B0014KJ6EQ
Release Date: February 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 11-15 of 77
 My particular report of disaster March 25, 2008
Richard Leonard (Encino (L.A), CA)
15 out of 21 found this review helpful
After reading all the great press, I ran out and bought Macspeech Dictate...installed it on my 2Ghz iMac, and then tried to run it...again, and again, and again. Without any luck! So I went to their website, hoping that there would be some troubleshooting concepts...but NOOOO. Just a buried mention of a disc production problem. A quick Search Engine check under "MacSpeech Dictate install problems" revealed several sites that echoed my experience. MY SUGGESTION: WAIT UNTIL VERSION 1.1 OR 1.2 is released.
Caveat emptor!
Not Ready For Prime Time March 28, 2008
MacUser (Charlotte, NC USA)
15 out of 20 found this review helpful
I agree with other posters here. As a long time user of Dragon Naturally Speaking, I was thrilled when a voice dictation product using the Dragon engine became available for the Mac. I received my disks 3 weeks ago and installation was fine. unfortunately, the program crashed repeatedly when trying to create a profile. Calls and emails to MacSpeech resulted in no solutions. Today, I found several forums with numerous angry customers with the same crashing problem and frustration with lack of support from MacSpeech. It turns out that there is a bad batch of DVD data disks. Instead of publicly acknowledging the problem and offering a disk replacment/download, the MacSpeech support site has been down for at least 2 weeks.
I can't comment on how the program otherwise functions, as I can't get past the profile creation step. i understand from other posters that the copy/paste and word correction functions are clunky and/or non-existent
My advice: don't buy Dictate until it is much more mature! It is clearly a beta product at present.
Another one April 3, 2008
J. T. Reich (Lexington, MA)
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
I too have had the bad disc/crashing on profile creation problem. The company seems clueless about it, and after getting numerous form email assuring me that my problem 'was being escalated to the next level of support who will get back to me shortly,' I called them. The tech guy there looked up my case and sleepily told me that my new disc was 'in the queue' and would be there 'uhhh...sometime middle of next week or so.' Considering that I contacted then about this 2 weeks ago, you would think it might have been a little sooner. Their customers are NOT high priority.
 I'm impressed... April 24, 2008
Peter R. Sheats (Florida, USA)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
I don't understand the other reviews. I received my copy of MacSpeech Dictate today, and I am very impressed. The program was easy to install and after the initial minimum voice training I was receiving surprisingly high accuracy.
I haven't done any extra training but as you can see the program is dictating very well (I am using it to write this review and I haven't touched the keyboard yet).
I am very excited to use this program since I experience RSI problems with my arms. I would highly recommend any Mac user who would like to cut down on the amount of typing they do to purchase this program and learn to use it.
 The Best Mac Voice Recognition Yet June 18, 2008
James D. DeWitt (Fairbanks, AK United States)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
MacSpeech Dictate, while not perfect, is by far the best Mac voice recognition software that has ever been available. It is far superior to IBM's ViaVoice and MacSpeech's earlier software, iListen.
After a comparatively brief training session, and a review of the manual, MacSpeech Dictate gives me 99.9% accuracy speaking at a normal rate, without any requirements of exaggerated pronunciation, and without having to pause to wait for the software to catch up. It supports a wide variety of punctuation symbols, cursor navigation and capitalization variations. There is a substantial group of available commands as well. You talk; the words appear on screen with impressive speed and accuracy. It's that simple.
What this version doesn't have is a "learning mode" or a "spelling mode." Technically, you can spell using the phonetic alphabet, but as often as not "whiskey" comes out as "whiskey" instead of "w." Those two features are promised as free upgrades to a later version.
MacSpeech Dictate works nicely with macro programs, including Rainmaker Software's Spellcatcher, allowing you to develop shortcuts and workarounds. There is some support for AppleScript, although the library appears to be somewhat limited and extensive AppleScript options seem to bog the program down, at least on my comparatively old iMac.
Still, MacSpeech Dictate is faster and more accurate than my typing. There are features I would like and the product really needs, but as shipped, and with a little patience, this is the first voice recognition software for Macintosh computer reliable enough for professional use.
I think some of the early reviews are really criticism of MacSpeech's technical support, and possibly some early problems with the reliability of CDs on which the product shipped. Those problems have been resolved; reviews focused on the problem should not be the basis for decision whether to buy this product. In particular, there is a very helpful frequently asked questions section at MacSpeech's website.
Very highly recommended.
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