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MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

See for yourself.....

Written by RR

Feb 10, 2009

Note: this was written with MacSpeech Dictate. I have done a considerable amount of voice training and I do not stutter, have an accent or lisp. Read for your self before you make the purchase..... Eter reading the reviews, I had to stop to see about my owner you. When I decided to do here, insert after point is to prove a point. if what I'm about to write is fully legible or lease clause then I will leave it up to you to decide whether or not this is an accurate program. When I first bought the program it seemed that everything worked perfectly. After using it for a little while I noticed that things started to do for. Anytime a win to write an e-mail, for whatever reason, it was impossible to get anything right. What I'm doing here is wearing out my 300 words or allotted for this review. To be completely honest with you, I am having a hard time with it right now. You links to help you-I said things- to help you like the recognition window and the available commands window. You will use them a lot. The available commands window is more effort than one it is worth concert after after. Insert after. When it comes to inserting after a word. It's easier to just do it manually. Ortiz the option, move backward/forward one -- 99 words. But you have to count the words. So it's best just to manually move your cursor. okay I had just hold it to insert after and he just went back and deleted half of what I had written. Of course I hit undo. Now for whatever reason, the latter he is constantly after my cursor. I'm going to try setting out again, I'm going to try to say that again. For whatever reason, the electorate he..... (I am typing this part manually. The letter E is constantly set after my cursor. When this happens, sometimes it's a C, then it really starts to type crazy things.) e now I just placed my cursor after the EE and we'll see what happens. No fee is back, he, E is back. I'm not sure if I have done my 300 words yet or not but this is pretty much a good example of the accuracy of this program. E. I would say I have a very good vocabulary. No list node list... nevermind. E Anyways makeup your own mind. I'm tired of hailing everybody talk about how great his program is es. I agree that's just people from the company putting in the reviews. I wish I never bought this time, thing. Now I have two ease. EE Oh and before I forget I have to point out the fact that tech support is Just ewful. E let me rephrase that. Tech support is just awful. You will wait and then get somebody soul and rude. But the moment cells is really... I give. E

140 of 186 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

This Product is NOT Good!

Written by TM

Dec 28, 2008

Whoever is writing these five-star reviews, they must work for the company-as someone said in another review. I have already had to manually correct the first sentence five times. Ten the little...? (times total!)
Originally an employee of mine bought this program. Being the fact that I'm the owner of a consumer advocate company, she gave it to me to try. Unless you do not have fingers that work relatively correctly, this program is more hassle than it is good. I do not believe under any circumstance that other than severely physically impaired users of this product are writing five-star reviews. It is that simple. And to be completely honest, some of the things this program types out makes me wonder if there is a wizard behind the curtain pulling the strings.
The reason this product was first purchase was because of physical limitations that the original owner has. I reimbursed her the money for it. If it made her job easier, to me it was worth the $200. She had to return the original headphones that came with the package and pay $55 for an upgrade. Along with the software update, the program works a little better. (It no longer types even after you quit talking.) But the moment it runs into one snag, it will continue to snag. It will erase entire paragraphs over and over again. It will decide to type over a sentence or delete a sentence somewhere in the middle of a paragraph, and for no apparent reason. You'll spend a lot of time using the undo option with this program. Only buy it if you truly have physical limitations that make it worth the effort. My employee has decided to just type through it.
I spoke to someone who purchased the Windows version for medical dictation. I can honestly tell you that this is one of the most laid-back individuals I have ever met. But I can also say that I heard anger in his voice and saw fire in his eyes when he spoke of having to use the words, "Scratch that... scratch that!" over and over again. And then I knew, I wasn't the only one. A lot of the time, the commands meant for correcting errors, do little if no good.
This review is the truth... It's what I do for a living. And the staple of my commitment to my job is, "Is it Fair?" Yes this is. When they do get this program to work well, what a wonderful thing it will be. It will sell like Elmo. And I will buy a new one... I hope it's a inexpensive upgrade. Note: By the end of this review, I have made 38 corrections.

111 of 128 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

DOES NOT WORK WITH SNOW LEOPARD!!

Written by CF from Allentown

Sep 6, 2009

It was a so so program that I paid a bunch of money for. But I ended up saying "scratch that" so much it was annoying. And now it doesn't work with snow leopard. FML

72 of 83 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

Completely worthless if you use snow leopard

Written by KB from Newfield

Sep 18, 2009

This was a reasonable program on earlier Mac operating systems. Now that I've upgraded to Snow Leopard it does not work. Macspeech appears not to be in any hurry to upgrade the program for compatibility. Not a cheap program, so now I wish I didn't waste my money.

58 of 62 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

Big disappointment . . .

Written by JH

Apr 18, 2009

First, forget all the 5 star reviews. Obviously written by insiders, or I don't know who.

I've used DNS on a PC for years. LOVED IT. For my Mac I had to buy Mac Speech, v1.3. VERY disappointing . . . UNLESS you are a "simple" dictator, that is no unusual words, or capitalization, etc. This is where the program fails. If you make a mistake training an incorrect word, FORGET IT. The incorrect trained word can not be corrected . . . Hello? All you can do is delete your profile, set up a new one, train again . . . how poor. In DNS, you could go into the vocabulary files and retrain, or delete trained words.

Guys, this is 2009 . . . poor design. And don't get me started about NotePad. Try to enter some text or correct using the keyboard. IT TYPES THE TEXT IN BACKWARDS . . .

You may not think these are big issues . . . try dictating anything other than a simple letter . .
I'm sending it back for a refund.

57 of 69 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

Not ready for serious users!

Written by DW from Spokane

Oct 12, 2008

I cannot recommend this product until they finish fulfilling their obligation to create a COMPLETE application. As it stands, it is very accurate, but the correction features are almost completely missing... it's supposedly currently in beta testing, but if you check the website forum, it's a common frustration, and tech support is notoriously bad. Too bad, I could really use this product and paid for the upgrade from iListen, which was slow to train and very inaccurate. This technology is almost there, and this may be a struggling company trying to make good on their claim to fame, but it is not, at this point, a tool for the power user, or anyone who needs to do a lot of training with the use of technical/medical terms.

Do not buy it yet... someday, it may be a wonderful app, but right now, it's like buying a Porsche without a reverse gear. Lots of fun until you have to actually make a correction.

43 of 51 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

Awful software

Written by JG from Philadelphia

May 25, 2009

If you are looking to quickly dictate your computer long documents and letters just in a few minutes, this is not it, dont buy this piece of software. It is horrible!!!!! It will take you hours to clean up the "dictation" mess up. That is only if you dont have any trouble installing the USB microphone that comes with the software. I will rather keep typing until my hands bleed. Good luck and please let me know if you find something good in terms of mac speech recognition.

49 of 75 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

MacSpeech is a MacFlop

Written by SB from Oakville

Nov 17, 2008

This is truly the worst software that I have ever had the misfortune of using on the Mac.
It does not recognize even the most basic of my dictation. I have used Dragon Dictate and it is light years ahead of this poor excuse for a product.
Do yourself a favour and avoid this at all costs.

55 of 97 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

Inaccurate

Written by AM from Conroe

Aug 2, 2008

Mostly inaccurate.

40 of 295 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

Those Headphones and Accuracy?

Written by SG from St.Neots

Jan 8, 2009

Dear All,

I am writing this as a regular seasoned Dragon user on the Laptop for my job - and Love it by the way - but I am a true macbook pro lover and would rather use it instead of the windows Laptop. So when I saw that DNS was now the main driver behind MacSpeech I thought my prays had been answered - So I bought it!

I got it out of the box - and!! Well I could not believe those Headphones? and you have to plug them in to the USB gizzmo. It would appear that DNS have not given over ALL the Technology to MacSpeech.

I would like to say "Please get rid of the Headphones and allow us to plug straight into the mac"

Just one other thing - The accuracy is not that brilliant! DNS technology works far better on the PC at the moment I am afraid.

If you can make the changes and get the accuracy up I would be the first one to sing it's praises!!

112 of 126 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

Spend more time making corrections.

Written by KE

Nov 5, 2008

The reason why I bought MacSpeech Dictate was because I had back surgery and typing creates a knot in the center of my back - not to mention that I have arthritis. I do use this program when I know I'm going to be typing more than 300 words or until I get fed up. I spend a great deal of time going over everything I write and doing corrections. MacSpeech Dictate has a very hard time knowing when to capitalize at the beginning of the sentence, When you are doing corrections, and at the beginning of a new paragraph. you have to be extremely careful using this program. (as last two sentences clearly show.) Getting a hold of tech support is very difficult. A new version came out with a free upgrade and I had hoped it would take care of the errors. It did not. Sometimes it works fabulously and other times I think I'm speaking in a different language. Regardless you have to be very careful using this program. If you're using it to save time... Don't. If you're using it because you have physical limitations, then it could be of help. I think all the four and five star reviews were placed by employees of MacSpeech Dictate. Because I'm telling you, it is a constant fight. if what you are writing is important, I hope you have a secretary to proofread or you're very good at proofreading yourself. I won't put my secretary through that. she's got a lot more important things to do. the only reason I fixed the spelling errors in this review was simply to make it legible and to make sense. I had to make a lot of corrections to this review. However, he did not fix capitalization. And at the beginning of that last sentence, I said, "I", not, "he".... Just an example.

105 of 119 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

Not Good.

Written by KE from Greensburg

Oct 10, 2008

This product was a waste of $200. I don't know how it got such high reviews. I have to constantly reach rain at to understand my speech.( I said we train it) reach trying at, retrying it, read train it... retrain it! I spend more time making corrections than I would if I just typed what I have to say. I have excellent verbal skills and speech. It shouldn't be so hard.

38 of 47 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

Gotta be kidding

Written by RB from Providence

Dec 25, 2008

The built in MacBook Pro Mic cannot be accessed by MacSpeech Dictate forcing the use of a ridiculous headset - pilot to co-pilot. Absurd decision- no doubt to up headset sales - very Microsoft.

37 of 48 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

What!

Written by BT

May 31, 2008

Why would they hype up such a horrible product. This is as bad as the windows 3000 "speech recognition" system. I spent a day teaching this program my voice. They say it takes 20 minuets! When its took about three hours for it to even make one coherent sentence! Do not buy.

72 of 166 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

Getting better but not there yet and now has a worrisome security issue

Written by SC from Shreveport

Jun 23, 2009

MacSpeech Dictate is certainly significantly better than its predecessor iListen but not equal to the Nuance NaturallySpeaking for Windows. I am now dictating this comment using version 1.3 and the accuracy is close to that I get when using Vista Speech Recognition software on my PC computer.

I believe if potential customers peruse reviews and forums including they MacSpeech forums you will see a great deal of frustration with with MacSpeech customer support and more recently their insistence that those of us who purchased MacSpeech Dictate shell out $60 plus shipping to upgrade to the latest version 1.5. MacSpeech ended up closing comments on the upgrade approximately 2 weeks into the overwhelming negative responses posted on their forum.

MacSpeech Dictate continues to have issues with mixed keyboard and voice editing. It is extremely disturbing to see your text scrambled or simply disappear after a few simple keyboard edits have been made. Additionally, I have experienced more crashes using Dictate and any other software for my Mac. One very unsettling observation has been that when MacSpeech dictate 1.3 crashes it launches my e-mail client and attempts to send detailed information detailing all that I have been doing prior to the crash including the document I am working on.

The first time this happened, I instinctively hit the send button forwarding this data to MacSpeech. Fortunately, I was not working on a sensitive document for my accountant, attorney or client. This option could prove devastating to professionals such as physicians and needs to be eliminated particularly given that MacSpeech is now making a version specifically for medical professionals.

97 of 98 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

It has potential but......

Written by BG from SWINDON

May 15, 2009

Wish I didn't have to say this, but, here goes, 'the windows version is better'!!!!! I purchased both MacSpeech Dictate (for the MAC) for me and Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 (for Windows) for the good lady. I firstly installed Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 and was simply blown away by what it can do, especially with the controlling of the programs. When testing it in Word (windows), I was able to use my voice to type things and then edit the document seamlessly e.g. if I made an error and said 'undo' the undo command will work, I could make specific words bold, in italics and even underline them using my voice, then when I'm ready I say 'close' and the dialog box will pop up and ask me whether I'd like to save it or not, I simply said 'save' and it will save it for me in the name I say and in the location I specify, with no problems at all, USING MY VOICE ONLY!!!!

When I installed MacSpeech Dictate and tested it on Microsoft Word for MAC, the results where disappointingly different. Having the program type what I say is fine but when it comes to controlling the program it just doesn't do the trick. If I say 'undo' it will type undo rather that use the undo command to correct any errors and for closing the program well,that was just problems, I said 'close','Quit', 'close window', 'Quit Microsoft Word' and the list goes on, and guess what the program is still open. It does Open the programs fine but for controlling and closing them, it needs alot of help!!!

Or mybe I do.

38 of 39 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

Excellent

Written by JM from Victoria

Jun 4, 2008

I have been a user of Via Voice, Dragon Naturally Speaking and iListen. Dragon is a PC program and is the best of the lot. Since Macspeech went to the Dragon or Nuance engine, and came out with Dictate they have finally come up with a great product. It is not perfect, but it is amazing. Both my wife and I set up profiles and had it trained in less than 15 minutes.

There have been problems for some people regarding customer service issues, but the product is fine. I say buy it!

609 of 662 people found this useful

MacSpeech Dictate v1.5

Product works but, the support does not

Written by BH from Oakville

Jun 5, 2008

Purchased this earlier this year. I rec'd one of the bad disks that had this product crashing everytime. After countless calls to the helpdesk finally had someone that said "you probably have the bad disk". Rec'd new disk in the mail a few days later. Works great after that.

Found that MacSpeech hid after the issues with the disk instead of coming out and admitting it. They took the support feature offline and did nothing to help their cause.

I have been using it for awhile now and really like the product. Had issues with my 14 year old on it until I noticed the "teen option".

Hope they learned from this issue and will improve the customer service.

458 of 521 people found this useful