More than a point update

Dictate 1.2

Developer: MacSpeech

System requirements: Intel-based Mac; Mac OS X 10.5.2 or greater ("Leopard") or Mac OS X 10.4.11 ("Tiger"); Internet connection required for product registration; MacSpeech-certified noise-canceling microphone (included)

Price: $165 (buy)

MacSpeech lit up MacWorld 2008 when it showed Dictate, its new voice recognition app that was built upon the powerful Dragon NaturallySpeaking recognition engine. Mac users, used to having access only to much more limited programs like iListen, were ecstatic, and when the program shipped a few months later, it was praised as a huge step forward.

In our review, though, we noted that the program was incomplete. "Dictate's main limitation is that it doesn't contain a corrections engine (like Dragon NaturallySpeaking does), which lets you tell Dictate when it has gotten a word wrong, and then tell it which word you intended," wrote our own Dave Girard.

"This significantly improves the accuracy of your voice profile over time. According to the documentation, a 'future version of MacSpeech Dictate will have a Correction feature that will help automate this process.' The corrections feature is definitely needed, so we anxiously await an update to this. Ditto for Spelling Mode, which is coming in a free future update."

That update is now here, and it does bring the promised correction mode and spelling mode. But even with the free additions, Dictate does not (yet) offer entrance into voice computing nirvana.

Bring on the features

In addition to a set of bug fixes, the new Dictate update brings two major new features to the program: spelling mode and corrections mode. Spelling mode provides a way to enter words character by character using only one's voice, something that might not at first appear to be overly useful but is, in fact, indispensable to good voice recognition software. In the section above, for instance, the program was unable to spell "Girard" without assistance. (Its best guess was "Gerrard," which is surprisingly good.) The new mode allows users to switch from dictation to spelling in order to type out proper names, unusual words, or abbreviations. It's doubly important in a program like MacSpeech Dictate, because the software has issues—sometimes serious issues—once you use dictation. More on these in a moment.



The main status window

The big drawback to the spelling mode is that users must explicitly shift into spelling mode and then back to dictation mode every time they need to spell a word. Given all the other problems in the world, this isn't a huge deal, but dictating a sentence, pausing, saying "spelling mode," spelling a word letter-by-letter, pausing, saying "dictation mode," and waiting for the software to switch is not the height of elegant behavior. In NaturallySpeaking for Windows, spelling is integrated directly into the dictation mode.

The other major feature is a correction mode, which MacSpeech refers to as "phrase training." When the software makes recognition errors or fails to understand the name of your company (a real concern when your company is called "Ars Technica"), you can use the phrase training feature to teach the software what you meant.



Phrase training in action

Saying "train the words [phrase in question]" selects the phrase in question, opens the recognition window, and shows a set of choices about what you might have said. Any of these can be chosen and edited; when done, the program learns from your correction and hopefully gets the word or phrase right in the future.

After a couple attempts, Dictate has become a champ at recognizing "Ars Technica."

Not having this functionality could prove maddening to early users of the software, who found themselves unable to teach the program new words or train it to their particular pronunciation of words already in its dictionary. Dictate still lacks a good vocabulary browser that allows for viewing, adding, and formatting words, but the fact that the corrections mode is here, and that it works, should make the program far more useful for anyone who gets sick of spelling out their company's name every time it comes up (and remember, you couldn't do this by voice, either, in the initial version of the software).

Though the new update was the product of half a year's work, MacSpeech has lived up to its promise and delivered the new 1.2 update free of charge to existing Dictate users. Critics will say (and have been saying for some time now) that the product was simply released too early, in that crucial features like these should have been present from the start. Why wasn't Dictate given a bit more time in the oven?

When we spoke to the company about this issue, we were told that it was a deliberate choice. Yes, the software might cause some frustration due to a lack of polish or missing features, but it would hardly be a benefit for Mac users who rely on voice recognition to wait another six months in order to use the software. A limited program with a solid recognition engine was better than no program at all.