MONTY LEE  I've been using 1.3 for a while and it has worked very well on a Macbook (circa 2007). I finally upgraded to 1.5 and have had nothing but problems. The program continually crashes or just quits working. I've tried my old Macbook, and even my MacPro (2 x 3 GHz Quad-Core Xeon with 14 GB RAM). Last weekend I finally upgraded to Snow Leopard by installing a NEW hard drive and doing a fresh install of SL and letting Apple migrate needed files. I then installed Dictate and have the same problems. So it isn't my computer or OS (10.6.2). I've been trying to contact both Sales and Tech Support now for a month and no one replies. I even sent a tweet but still no response. There is NO SUPPORT. Even Sales doesn't care. I wouldn't buy from this company ever again, and cannot recommend Dictate 1.5.  
(Version 1.5.7)

DANNOTDAN  The Amazon.com price linked above is wrong, they are charging $166.99.  
(Version 1.5.6)

BLUESTAR  Update link is dead!  
(Version 1.5.6)

BETO BOTON  I was one of MacSpeech customers who "upgraded" from iListen to Dictate.

I deeply regreted it.

I continue to use iListen since Dictate is not a mature product.

Unfortunately the only concern MacSpeech peole have with the product is to charge more and more from customers, providing meaningless and insignificant updates.

The fault is not in using Dragon's engine at all. It's implementation for OS X is limited, demanding on resources, and not user friendly.

Sorry guys, do not what you want, but what your customers need!

Current evaluation: Poor & Greedy.  
(Version 1.5.5)

MMUECK  Yea, I paid $200 a while back for this and it was just awful - no easy corrections or dictionary expansion capability. It was a buggy, sloppy port of DNS to the Mac. Then they fixed some of those bugs and had the hide to charge some outrageous upgrade price shortly afterwards that truly bent the majority of their user base out of shape. At the very least they should include a big "L" sticker and a tube of lubricant in every box.

To the makers of Dictate: How do you take a quality product like DNS, that Mac users have been craving for years, and turn that golden opportunity into something that consistently seems to draw the anger of your users. Way to go...   
(Version 1.5.5)

RRNOWELL  Since virtually everyone acknowledges that the Dragon engine is the best and MacSpeech has licensed it and since Dragon Dictate is acknowledged to be the premier product, has anyone tried using Dragon Dictate running under WinXP and Parallels or VM Fusion? Perhaps it would be better to take this route as the owners of MacSpeech seem to be bilking out of cash customers with an inferior product.

I sure wish Apple would spin off a subsidiary to compete with MacSpeech and clear out the dross as this hurts Apple's product by limiting the application software available on the Mac and having a poor vendor that is leaving a bad taste in the mouths of Apple's customers.  
(Version 1.5.2)

MONDELE  Unfortunately, the dictation software market on the Mac seems to have been dominated by exploitative people who see Mac users as an undiscriminating group of rich people, willing and ready to pay exorbitant prices for inferior products.

Dragon Naturally Speaking was originally developed on and for the Mac, when the first PowerPCs were coming out. (It also worked with the dedicated sound processors in the AV Macs). I was present at a sales presentation oriented towards Mac VARs, and was extremely interested in adding the product to our lineup. Upon inquiry, we were told that it would be sold for $1500/seat, that we were prohibited from selling it for less, as this would hurt the branding the company was pursuing.

Shortly thereafter, the Mac product was discontinued and it was offered on the PC for $100/seat.

Now I'm getting offers to by the Windows version of the software for $30 (discounted from a normal price of $100) - or I can by this Mac-licensed version for $200.

I'm sorry, Dragon, I use a Mac because of a superior value for my money, not the other way around. I, too, would welcome competition in this area.  
(Version 1.5.2)

HMURCHISON  I used to do training on Dragon NaturallySpeaking (primarily the Medical version which often floored Doctors) and the Professional version.

I'm itching to get back to dictating. With a good microphone and properly enuciated speech it's easy to hit %80 + accuracy right out the box and % 90 if you're experienienced in how dictation engines like vocal cadence.

It's great that we have the DNS engine now powering the software so where we need to see rapid evolution is in the supporting cast. I noticed that Dictate is Intel only so I'd expect that it would be wise to move the software to Snow Leopard since the developer has no PPC users. I've always felt that dictation software could really benefit from judicious use of threading for performance and I hope MacSpeech is looking to leverage Grand Central Dispatch to good effect as well as 64-bit.

Also further leveraging Applescript, Automator and the newly improved services would increase the power of Dictate immensely IMO. Most people think that these programs are strictly about voice to text but the real power is in tying automated procedures to vocal commands. If you're a developer and you get this down you will have customers for life.   
(Version 1.5.1)

BIGCLOITS  Dictate is one of the most unstable and generally poorly designed major pieces of software I have ever had the misfortune to be stuck using.

Far from being a major improvement over MacSpeech's previous product, iListen, Dictate still feels as twitchy and poorly thought out as iListen ever did, even after a year and a half of development and at least two major updates. The only real improvement is that Dictate is based on a far superior speech recognition engine (and that's not nothing). However, it's a lot less use if the software wrapped around the engine totally sucks.

I purchased Dictate shortly after its release in early 2008, and have barely had a day of trouble-free use of the product ever since. Routine hanging and crashing has been the main problem. Due to an egregious Canadian localization bug, for several months I had to choose between a version of Dictate that would literally not launch all, and an older version that merely crashed frequently.

When 1.5 was release recently (May 09), I hoped I would finally be able to use Dictate with fewer hassles, but no such luck. Even running on a well-maintained year-old MacBook Pro, Dictate 1.5 (and 1.5.1) is as crashy as ever. Within minutes of using the new version, CPU usage spikes to 98% and stayed there -— not just bringing Dictate to a halt, but the entire machine, and even refusing to force quit. Lovely. Such experiences have been the rule with Dictate from the beginning!

For many months I communicated regularly with MacSpeech about my frustrations with their product. I cooperated diligently with a great deal of troubleshooting. I was often treated like I was some kind of problem customer, despite the fact that I have some empathy for the kind of frustrations tech support workers have to cope with and try pretty hard to be nice to them. Some weren't so bad, of course. But despite the professionalism of some individual tech support professionals at MacSpeech, the overall customer service experience was abominable.

Ultimately, MacSpeech simply was not willing to stand behind their product in any substantive way. I am a deeply annoyed customer.  
(Version 1.5.1)

LAW12  Question...I see everyone is upset a the shipping prices. With that aside. Anyone that has purchased this program since Jan '09. Is it a viable program for dictation into Word?   
(Version 1.5.1)

SLOB  That's what I like about macUpdate. I really want a program like this, got disappointed with IBM ViaVoice years ago and waited - and having been tipped off by these comments will keep waiting for some other developer to put out a fair deal, including the upgrades.

I do appreciate software development and have spent quite a bit over the years, but these especially larger outfits so blatantly creaming the buyers I've had more than enough of.

Thanks guys, and thanks to the honest working developers out there too.  
(Version 1.5.1)

NEIL_M  Bought this in Jan '09 - it is far from perfect, revved upto version 1.3, still not perfect.

Then all herald 1.5 arrives promising what the last one did - but for real this time? and....by the way...

Upgrade costs £49 in the UK - not including shipping.

No amused.  
(Version 1.5)

JIMW  Very disappointed about the 1.5 upgrade policy. The are charging all previous owners ~$65 (with basic shipping) for this 'upgrade' which in my opinion is mostly an update as much of what it contains are items that should have been in the 1.0 release and bug fixes. However as the only game in town for Mac voice recognition, users that want this technology have no other choice to the best of my knowledge.

Tip: If you are buying this product for the first time I recommend you shop around on-line for any microphone enhancements rather than purchasing the upgrades from the Mac Speech web site as the only thing significant Mac Speech seems to offer by purchasing a microphone upgrade through them is convenience. The research I have done on this subject has indicated to me that on some microphone upgrades, substantially better pricing for can be easily found elsewhere. However if you are going to get one of the basic microphones included with their $199 price you are money ahead by getting it included with the package as the discount they offer for no microphone is substantially less than the prevailing cost of the basic microphones they include, along with the loss of any return privileges. For example, the Samson Airline ($350 @ macspeech) can be found for under $250 before the $23 discount for the software alone. My advise is to shop around for microphone enhancements in order to get the best price, then compare it to the MacSpeech upgrade price, taking in consideration the Dictate discount ($23) if you get the the software without the microphone. Another words, be an informed and savvy consumer.  
(Version 1.5)

HMURCHISON  From their website

"MacSpeech, Inc. today announced the immediate availability of MacSpeech Dictate 1.5, the exciting first upgrade to the premier speech recognition solution for the Macintosh, now introducing a new Vocabulary Editor, new English profile options, enhanced accuracy and much more. MacSpeech Dictate 1.5 requires Mac OS X 10.5.6 or higher and is available today for US$199 as a new purchase, or US$54.95 for current owners of MacSpeech Dictate.

"

The previous Vocab editor was NOT up to snuff. This is great news they're also claiming that accuracy has improved %20. It may be time for me to jump in provided to Vocab editor is solid. I can't overstate how critical it is to manage your custom vocab properly.   
(Version 1.5)

MUKINDURI  I installed Windows XP on my Macbook only so I could run Dragon Dictate 9, the latest version then available. I was not happy with Dragon 9's performance and seldom used the program. With some scepticism I spent more money to update to the newly released Dragon Dictate 10. There is a world of difference between versions 9 and 10. I love Dragon 10.

I'm considering buying a new Mac and would settle for Macspeech if it's performance is similar to Dragon Dictate 10. The underlying speech recognition technology is the same for both.

Does anyone have experience in comparing the two systems?  
(Version 1.3)

JIMW  This is an update to a previous review. I have been using the latest update for a number of weeks. It seems to be much improved over the previous version. It also now contains the necessary features to now make it a useable program - features that should have been in 1.0.

Voice recognition seems to be improved as well. While it still suffers from a number of idiosyncrasies, such as not being able to add an unrecognized app to the app listing (only adds as a global), email commands causing crashing, and the occasional random crash, I now, after going through both Dictate 1.0 and the agony of IListen, finally regard it as a useable product. It finally seems to be in a condition that can improve instead of hinder productivity. This is not to say that it does not still have some significant faults. Nevertheless it does seem worthy of some serious consideration.

Given the complexity of the product I want to give it further use and see what is offered at MacWorld in January, before writing a full review on it again.   
(Version 1.2)

IPECK  Tested on Mac OSX 10.5.2 Intel iMac Core2Duo 2 Ghz, 1 Go RAM.

The setup is quite long to go tru but on the other hand it needs to gather much infos about your voice so its ok.

The interface is easy to use and responding pretty well to computer commands (Open apps, nav tru windows and finder). The app do take a lot of RAM. Diminishing your multi-tasking ability.

You will need to give more infos on your voice after setup to the dictating tool cuz the setup seem not to gather enough from voice at start. The dictating tool is kinda slow to type your words. Sometimes you wounder if it got your speeched words right.

The accuracy of the tool is quite good though. Surprises me everytime. The vocubulary training is a good addition too, widens the tool capacity to understand your speech. The coolest thing is the use of the tool, natively on almost all you installed apps, you dont even need to setup for other apps uses. The software detects your apps.

The pricing is kinda high considering there is still considerable work to be done on this app. But very promising.  
(Version 1.0.1)

HOWZEE  I bought 'Dictate' and have had a NIGHTMARE trying to get it to work - to no avail and despite several fruitless conversations with the customer service team. The program only works in itself - and spits out scrambled rubbish in all other programs... a problem that is WELL KNOWN and mentioned various blogs and forums... but a problem that the MacSpeech CS Team allegedly know nothing about! Poor show. I cannot advise anyone to buy this product.   
(Version 1.0.1)

ANDREWA121  I didn't think the lack of support documentation would be a problem. Well, it is, as the program beachballs every time I try to set up a profile. So I'm out of commission until Support gets back to me. I'm worried, because I've heard that MacSpeech's support is mediocre at best. We'll see...  
(Version 1.0.1)

WILMA  The good news:

MacSpeech Dictate is VERY usable dictation software for the Mac. It is fast, accurate, easy to use, and takes under 10 minutes to set up and train. Wow!

Dictate is light-years better than iListen. If you discarded iListen because it wasn't usable, you should upgrade NOW.

The bad news:

Dictate is a far-from-complete early release. It doesn't have all its features yet (no spelling mode, no correction feature).

Dictate is still buggy. Mixing typing and dictation is a sure way to get Dictate confused and cause some really strange behavior. Especially since Undo is buggy, you will want to do FREQUENT saves. (I usually dictate into Note Pad, with frequent saves, and then transfer text to TextEdit or Bean.)

If you haven't used dictation software before, or if you already have a Naturally Speaking on Windows, you may want to hold off buying Dictate until some of the worst bugs get fixed.

It takes under 10 minutes to set up Dictate and start dictating text. Accuracy is excellent. There are some capitalization bugs, which result in occasional Words in the middle of sentences getting capitalized. A few times I've seen a random word gets UPPERCASED.

Dictate allows you to transcribe speech into its own Note Pad window, or directly into applications. (I mostly use the Bean word processor, as it is fast and simple, and can quickly switch text between smart and dumb quotes.)

The Note Pad interface is rather buggy. Typing into it only works if your cursor is at the end; otherwise, letters tend to type backwards, and are directly attached to the previous word. Cutting and pasting cause Dictate to get confused, which will quickly scramble your text.

Dictate is very processor-intensive. You will want to turn off process-hogging applications while you work.

Teaching Dictate your vocabulary and writing style requires feeding the program TEXT or RTF documents, which it analyzes for vocabulary and word use patterns. Then you get to choose which words actually get added to the program's vocabulary. I'm a professional writer with a huge vocabulary, and fed it a huge amount of text, which took over an hour per profile. (I dictate using two different voices to rest my vocal chords.)

Documentation is decent.

Summary: Dictate is fast, accurate, and highly usable despite its quirks. If you have used dictation software before, especially iListen, Dictate is well worth getting. If not, you might want to wait one more rev for additional features and bug fixes.  
(Version 1.0.1)

WILSONPLAME  This software is great except that it crashes every time I try to create a profile, which is unfortunately a requisite step for training which is itself requisite to using the software. A quick google led me to this link where it is apparent that many people are having this problem which may or may not be attributable to defective data disks.

In short, I would wait until the next iteration, if at all. It sounds like they will grudgingly admit a problem if you make a stink. A notice placed prominently on their web site would have been nice, particularly when the software is almost $200.  
(Version 1.0.1)

JIMW  The good news is that they finally have a manual for this product abet, only in PDF format - at least for now. The bad news is the only indication to what was changed in the product is what is contained in the update blurb as posted in MacUpdate. I am unable to locate any other documentation that actually indicates what fixes and changes were made. Unbelievably, even the released version, as mentioned in the release notes was not updated, much less the content of the notes. Only after I work with it for a while will I know if my documented issues were addressed and what else was updated or fixed. But at least there is now a full set of instructions for the product including lists of some previously undocumented critical commands; but still minus a complete command reference listing.   
(Version 1.0.1)

JIMW  I ordered my upgrade at MacWorld in January. I received it several weeks ago, and have been using it off and on ever since. In dictation mode, it seems to work reasonably well, much better than the previous product iListen. It is easier to set up and train, and seems to be more accurate in its rendering of voice. It is also reasonably easy, to add your own commands for various applications, basing them on existing commands that are already in the product were using them as a template. That said, this first release of the product does have its problems, many of which are very significant.

To begin with, no manual is available, not even on electronic version. The only documentation included with the product is a quick start guide, which mainly covers installation and initial setup, and an abbreviated command guide, it covers only a single page on the back of the four page, statement sized, set up guide. and opened up, this guide is the equivalent, of a two-sided, letter-sized piece of paper with half of one side, being the front cover, of the document, and having no useful information. The only source, other than me very limited list of commands on the back page of the setup guide, is a list of commands within the program, where they may be edited or modified, or a list of commands that appear when the program is launched. The user is left to its own devices, to export or print out these commands, as there is no export capability. This also becomes an issue if the user creates their own commands, since there is no way of exporting them into a file, they may become lost in the preferences become corrupted, which is not a totally unusual condition. spelling correction is not available with this version but is promised in a future release. The only applications that have command support with this product are finder Safari, iCal, Mail, and Text Edit. While it does have the capability of importing commands from iListen, this may also be a mixed bag as some of the imported commands may not function properly. wobble for a man in construction of a custom command is fairly simplistic, the procedure for actually accomplishing this, is not covered in the startup guide, nor is there on screen help, so it becomes an exercise for the user to figure out how to do this. An initial problem with the product, was at the registration website was not functioning properly, so a user was forced to run the demo mode, until the problem was resolved and fixed. That is now functioning properly. There is a hotline for technical support included, but unfortunately the agents can only assist with very basic questions. For anything else to call must be escalated. However they do call back. During uses I have experienced occasional crashes. I have had my preferences become corrupted. I also find that on launch, getting the product to synchronize its modes, with a monitor window, may require a bit of playing around. The only way I can get it to have consistent results, is to set the startup mode to sleep mode. Dictate is absolutely incompatible, with Unsanity's APE, or application enhancer. It caused no end of grief, including kernel panics, when installed in conjunction with Dictate. Excluding dictate as an application in its preferences pane, did not eliminate the conflicts completely. The product had to be removed. While MacSpeech is aware of this, at least at the time that IE ran into the problem, it was not documented anywhere.

While MacSpeech representatives justify its current state as being a 1.0 release, I find I must take exception to this perspective. Personally I feel it is more of a beta version, then a final release, given the issues this product currently has.

So at this time, I would primarily recommend this product, for people who need the Dictate portion of the product, rather than the command mode, and are capable of making spelling corrections from a keyboard. Beyond this I would suggest waiting for the next upgrade or release of the product. Hopefully by then, they will include spelling correction, proper documentation, and a more stable product. I find it difficult to give it an overall rating as some of the parts that work work well, but many other parts of the product do not or are missing. So my reading becomes an average of all of these issues. Once the product is revised and a number of its issues resolved, I believe it will earn a much higher rating, and I am giving it in this review.  
(Version 1.0)