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Review: Dragon Dictate 4.0 for Mac – The best speech recognition appgets even better

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Written by: JORDAN KAHN

! @JordanKahnMarch 29, 2014 / 2:03 pm

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dictation Dragon Dragon Dictate dragon dictate 4 Nuance Speech recognition speech recognition software

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Using our voice to control computers has never really taken off. For many of us, using voice recognitiontechnology wasn’t even a consideration until features like dictation and Siri arrived on our iPhones andiPads. There’s good reason too: the voice recognition features built into our devices have always had thereputation of being half-baked. They simply aren’t accurate and consistent enough to replace our tried andtrusted mouse and keyboard or touchscreen. While half decent dictation features come with every Mac (andare powered by Nuance’s technology), the voice recognition features you get with latest version of Nuance’sDragon Dictate for Mac go well beyond simply dictating speech to text.

When people think Nuance and Dragon Dictate they typically think speech to text dictation features. After

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reading a bit of text and walking through a brief tutorial (about 10 minutes total), the app is remarkablyaccurate at understanding your voice and dictating speech consistently. If you haven’t tried full-blowndictation software like Dragon in recent years like myself, you’ll truly be amazed at how precise the programis at dictating error-free text as you speak naturally. There’s no need to speak slowly and carefully to makesure every word is recognized, and there’s no waiting around for the software to catch up to what you’resaying.

So will I be writing my articles for 9to5Mac by simplyspeaking and having Dragon dictate from now on?Nope. Dragon Dictate won’t let you plow through a5000 word piece nearly as quick as you’d type it,mainly because learning the commands necessaryfor formatting and corrections is like learning a newlanguage. Basic commands seem easy enough toremember while dictating— Caps on, close quote,comma, ‘apostrophe ess’, insert, correct, new line—but in practice having to speak commands toproperly format a sentence as you dictate takesaway from the freedom of being able to capture yourthoughts as you speak freely. I personally found thesoftware much more useful for composing shortsnippets of text that typically don’t require muchformatting or a deep train of thought that might be interrupted by formatting commands, like emails, Tweets,reminders, lists, and brainstorming sessions.

Of course, that process becomes much easier as you memorize and become more comfortable with thecommands. While for me it won’t be replacing my keyboard on a daily basis for writing, that doesn’t meanwith a little practice dictation in Dragon Dictate 4.0 can’t be a powerful alternative if necessary. DragonDictate has long been a popular product among those with medical conditions like arthritis that limit theability to type comfortably or at all.

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Admittedly your mileage with accuracy might vary depending on your accent (I was using the U.S. settingsince there is no Canadian accent preference), but there are also region settings for the UK, Singapore, NewZealand, Canada and India, as well as accent preferences for American, American- Inland Northern,American- Southern, American- Teens, Australian, British, Indian, Latino, and Southeast Asian.

For me, the real standout feature of Dragon Dictate 4.0 is the ability to control applications on your Macusing only your voice. Dragon Dictate comes with a number of built-in commands that allow you to controlfunctions across apps like Finder, Mail, Messages, Notes and Safari, as well as commands for composingemail or sharing status updates to Facebook and Twitter. It also has a powerful built-in command editor thatlets you setup your own voice commands for just about anything you can think of. Launch, quit, or hideapplications, search the web, open a file or folder, or create a new reminder using only your voice. I set upcommands for opening new tabs and navigating to specific tabs in Chrome, switching between or launchingmy commonly used full-screen apps by simply saying the app’s name, initiating playback in Logic Pro, aswell as opening files and folders in Finder. The command editor is easy enough for anyone to setupcommands for opening apps, bookmarks, files and folders, menu items, and any keystroke either systemwide or within an app, but also has the ability to use AppleScript, Automator workflow, Shell script, and textmacro for more complex voice commands. Once you get used to speaking to your Mac and asking it to dothings, you’ll wonder why you always haven’t been searching the web, navigating Gmail, and launching andswitching between apps and folders with your voice.

What’s new in 4.0:

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For those that have used previous versionsof the software, the upgrade to DragonDictate 4.0 has a lot to offer on top of anoverall bump in speed and accuracy. Itincludes the ability to transcribe fromvarious audio formats like mp3, air, or wavfiles, a feature that previously required aseparate $149 purchase of Nuance’sMacSpeech Scribe software. Once youselect an audio file to be transcribed,Dragon Dictate immediately startstranscribing around 60 seconds of the fileas best it can without any training— theaccuracy of the initial text will depend a loton the quality of the recording. Aftercorrecting or approving the 60 secondsworth of text it transcribes (I usually found acorrection or two to be made every other line), the software takes a few minutes to create a profile for theaudio and train itself to accurately transcribe the rest of the file. It’s not perfect, the final transcriptiontypically had a number of errors to correct unless the audio source was the cleanest, professional voicerecording imaginable with no background noise. The transcription also comes out as one big blob of textwith no concern for punctuation or grammar. Don’t expect a finished product quality transcription, but sinceit can transcribe the text in only a fraction of the actual length of the audio and pretty accurately, it willcertainly trim a lot of time off transcriptions of long audio files.

The new version also packs in a long list of commands specifically for controlling Gmail in Safari and Firefoxwith your voice, as well as some nice enhancements for dictating into Pages.

The biggest issue I ran into with Dragon Dictate 4.0 was background noise getting picked up. There arecommands to mute the mic, put it to sleep, or have it auto sleep, but that doesn’t do much to combatbackground noise when you have the mic on while dictating commands. On a few occasions backgroundnoise from either my devices, pets or the street would launch apps unexpectedly or begin dictating textwhen I wasn’t speaking. This was mostly an issue when using my Macbook’s built in mic and of coursewouldn’t be a concern in a perfectly quiet room. It’s also partly your Mac’s fault; using a standalone vocalmic positioned properly, a headset, or the Dragon Remote app that turns your iPhone into a mic for yourMac will minimize these issues.

Is it worth the cost?

Dai

ly D

eals

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Dictation might not be faster than typing, but that’s not the point. The ability to transcribe voice memos andother audio files you’ve recorded on the go and control anything on your Mac with your voice would makeDragon Dictate an excellent value even without everything else it offers. And for those that for some reasoncan’t type or just don’t want to, the dictation features are worth every penny if Apple’s built-in featuressimply aren’t enough.

Dragon Dictate for Mac 4 usually sells for $199.99 but is currently on sale for $179. An upgrade fromprevious versions of Dictate is available for $149.

Dai

ly D

eals

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15 Responses to “Review: Dragon Dictate 4.0 for Mac – The best speech recognition app gets

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Gregory Wright says:March 29, 2014 at 4:03 pm

Pretty nifty if it works as demonstrated.

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scumbolt2014 says:March 29, 2014 at 9:08 pm

I’m sick of hearing about this stupid app.

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Jordan Kahn says:March 30, 2014 at 10:25 am

Yet you still clicked through the headline and took time to leave this comment.

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rfgeor says:March 30, 2014 at 3:45 am

Beware the poor service if you have a problem. I tried to find the link to update from v. 3 MAC and afterchatting for 10 minutes, had to have someone call me and then do the order via phone. They sent anemail and after installation, had a question. Couldn’t find an online answer so called during businesshours only to be told that no one was currently available because of a staff meeting (really!). Used thesoftware and there were no visible differences in the new version. I noticed that the review didn’tdiscuss any either, just alluded to them. Being the only game in town has evidently had its effect oncustomer service and I can do without software If service is poor. It would be nice if there was somecompetition in this area. I still use v3 cause I paid for it but would like a real choice.

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Jordan Kahn says:March 30, 2014 at 10:24 am

“I tried to find the link to update from v. 3 MAC and after chatting for 10 minutes, had to havesomeone call me and then do the order via phone.”

I linked directly to the upgrade page in the review above. Works perfect.

“Used the software and there were no visible differences in the new version. I noticed that thereview didn’t discuss any either”

The review discussed the biggest new feature, transcription, in detail. That used to be a separate$149 purchase (as I mentioned in the review.) The new Gmail and Pages support are also notablenew features and are detailed in the videos above. It’s also immediately noticeable going from 3.0to 4.0 a step up in overall performance of dictation.

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varera (@real_varera) says:March 31, 2014 at 12:40 am

every second article on this site is now a commercial. it is time to sign off.

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Jordan Kahn says:March 31, 2014 at 7:21 am

We’ve always done product reviews and they are popular with readers. This is an honest review ofthe latest release of popular software. What’s the problem exactly? Reviews are always labeled assuch so they should be easy to skip if you just want to read news stories. Thanks.

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Mario Malnar (@MalnarMario) says:March 31, 2014 at 1:50 pm

Thank you Jordan, Im grateful. Ive been thinking about dragon for ages, this will probably help.Please bring good reviews again. If someone doesnt like them, no need to read.

Samuel Lavoie says:March 31, 2014 at 7:05 pm

Great reviews of this well known OS X app. I feel you fully deserved the affiliation link. noworries, keep them coming!

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Victoria Wedyke says:March 31, 2014 at 1:40 pm

This could be highly beneficial for people with disabilities that need to be at a computer for their job, butjust can’t work the keyboard anymore. If it works with the amount of accuracy the article talks about Ifeel that this app is going to help a lot of people.

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ilox101 says:April 3, 2014 at 5:23 am

So if I had a Mac I would definately be thinking seriously of taking this advice…

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Brian Levy says:April 14, 2014 at 8:29 am

I have no idea whether Dragon 4 Dictate is any good or not… because after 3 weeks of conversationswith Nuance technical support (including a remote session where their technician had full access to mystate of the art iMac) the software will not run. It just throws up an internal error with a message tocontact technical support.

I have literally spent hours and hours going through lengthy e-mails with line after line of instructions ofthings to try. Not only that but I have lost Version 3 which Nuance deleted in its futile attempts to installVersion 4! When I tried to complain to Nuance that I thought that they should at least give me some ofmy money back or otherwise compensate me for the hours I have spent trying to help them to debugtheir software, the technical support manager, ‘Norman’ (he would reveal his surname) could not havebeen less interested.

As things stand, I have lost Dragon Dictate 3 and Nuance are giving me no time frame as to when theirdevelopment team will fix this issue (assuming that they know what they are doing which is highlydoubtful).

My recommendation would be to avoid this software like the plague until Nuance actually fix theproduct so that it works as described and/or they begin to demonstrate that they actually value theircustomers. Nuance is one of the worst companies you could possibly deal with!

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Diana Grueva says:April 23, 2014 at 8:19 am

Does anyone have any experience on using Dragon for school recordings of professors? I am a lawstudents and am thinking about using it to record professor lectures as we get a LOT thrown at us. Any

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feedback on that aspect?

williebob1501 says:April 28, 2014 at 4:44 pm

The sheer greed of this company knows no bounds! If you buy the latest version of Dragon Dictate, youcan expect to pay the full purchase price again in 12 months when you need to update your software tobe compatible with Apple updates. This is a lesson in the evils of a corporate monopoly. If you valueethics, I recommend you go with an alternative. We l

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Seth Feldman says:May 29, 2014 at 10:41 pm

One of the worst companies I have ever dealt with. Product never worked, error messages. Greatadvertising, poor service.

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