Yesterday Nuance released to Dragon dictate 2.5.
So what’s it like?
STOP PRESS: Even though initially I wrote this great review, after using version 2.5 for a week I find that it often crashes when I try to use the correction window. There are a lot of complaints about this in the Dragon Dictate forums. I’d hold off till the next update comes along . Dragon Dictate 2.5 is quite unstable.
24th August 2011: Dragon Dictate 2.5.1 was released this week and all the stability problems seem to be fixed.
Accuracy.
The first thing we want to know about is the accuracy of course. Dragon Dictate 2.5 is based on the speech engine from Dragon 11 for windows! So for users who like to use the Windows version instead of the Mac version, it seems like we’re finally on par in terms of recognition accuracy.
To tell you the truth, I was pretty happy with the previous version of Dragon Dictate, although it did stumble over a number of words, Australian (it would say a strain), Jesus (it would sometimes say cheeses), and acronyms like DPC. The new Dragon Dictate passes on all those, and I didn’t really have any other problematic words to test it on. So 10/10 for recognition.
iPhone Microphone App
This is a cool little iPhone app that turns your iPhone into an external wireless microphone. You load the app onto your iPhone, and then when you create a new profile in Dragon Dictate where you choose your iPhone as the microphone. I didn’t like the idea of having to hold the iPhone up to my mouth while I dictated, so I tested it with the iPhone headphones and it worked fine. In terms of accuracy it seemed to be as good as my normal microphone, which was surprising. The only drawback with the iPhone microphone app is that there is a slight delay between when you dictate and when the words appear on the screen. I assume this is because the iPhone has to send the audio over the wireless connection to your Mac computer. I don’t think i’d ever use this but it’s a neat trick and might come in handy if you are travelling with your laptop and iphone and don’t want to take a microphone along.
Mixed editing.
With Dragon Dictate 2.5 Nuance have finally addressed the issue of mixed editing. Previously if you corrected some words with your computer and mouse and others with the built in speech correction, the program would get confused. Apparently this was worst in Microsoft Word, and I don’t use Microsoft Word, but this has been addressed and it now works in the latest version of Microsoft Word 11.
Other posts on Speech recognition:
I was using DragonDictate to help write a large report in Word 2011, and when I started it today the offer to upgrade to 2.5 popped up. After reviewing the new features, I downloaded it and it installed perfectly, unfortunately. I immediately encountered problems when dictating in word. It simply will not place the words where the cursor is. It splits up previous words, starts in completely unpredictable places, picks up or adds strange formatting, and adds a syllable or 2 at the end for no apparent reason. After half an hour of struggling, I have finally given up. The previous version was completely functional, and there was no reason to get rid of it. I assume that this version would maintain the same functionality, but I was sadly mistaken. A complete and total mess. It did just fine in e-mails, and even for this dictation, but in Word 2011, it was hopeless. I can’t believe they offer this version in this form, and I can’t believe I was so stupid as to replace a perfectly good program with this useless one.
Yes, sadly that’s my experience too