I was afraid this was going to happen.
I went looking through there website today looking to see if there was an upgrade for OSX can came across this disappointing news.
Here is the official word from Nuance:
That sucks. Are there any alternatives?
I bet David will not like this news. Based on his podcast he uses Dragon a lot.
Thatās really disappointing as I still use version 5. Are we expected to run it in a Windows Vm or using Parallels? Iād hate to have to buy a PC just to dictate. Is the idea that Iāll dictate long forms of writing via my phone and then transfer and edit on my Mac?
My needs are pretty simple. I would be happy with recording a half hour audio file and getting a text file returned to me with it transcribed.
I looked at the professional services and they are more money than I can afford. Anywhere from $1-$5 a minute.
I will try to use the Enhanced dictation in OSX going forward.
I will also try the Just Press Record iOS app as well.
If these donāt work out, I may try to hack something together with Amazonās transcription service. I am not a developer but I may try. Basically, you upload a file to the S3 bucket, and then start a transcription job. I think this can all be accomplished using python. The price is cheap too. About $1.50 an hour of transcription time.
I think they should give us the latest and greatest PC version and let us decide. Iām sure that will never happen.
I guess the other option is to pay $150? a year to use the iOS version of Dragon Anywhere.
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The PC version blows the Mac one out of the water. Wish they could just take the progress in the PC version and mirror it in the Mac.
I have been playing with Just Press Record for a few minutes. So far it has been accurate. It also has the ability to transcribe audio files recorded elsewhere. Just put the audio files in the iCloud folder and you can request transcription via the iPhone app.
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Just Record was a mess to me, when I pushed long audio files, more than 30 seconds, it couldnāt get it done.
Having purchased every version of Dragon Dictate, and before that MacSpeech, and before that ViaVoice, this is not good news. A lot of money invested over the years.
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It looks like this is just the Mac version of Dragon Professional Individual
I saw no indication that Dragon Anywhere Individual and Dragon Home are being discontinued.
I donāt know what set Dragon Professional Individual apart from Dragon Anywhere Individual or Dragon Home, but it looks like there are still options for individual Mac users.
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Dragon Home for Mac doesnāt exist. The only Dragon OSX software is discontinued.
Dragon Anywhere is iOS only and not on OSX.
Yikes.
Iād add that, in my experience, Dragon Anywhere on iOS isnāt as accurate as Dragon Pro is on my Mac.
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Maybe Drafts for the Mac will solve this for us when itās up and running. I still need to play with iOS version.
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As Mina said, Just Press Record doesnāt work well for long audio files. This is for both ones you record in the app and audio files you place in its iCloud folder.
I wonder how accurate the Amazon Transcription service is. You can feed it āindustryā words which are the ones I see Enhanced Dictation on the Mac messing up with for me anyway.
Time to learn some python.
JPR doesnāt work well for longer files, but at least it DOES work, in contrast to Siri dictation. But sure: It is a workaround, not a replacement for something like Dragon for Mac.
For those who might be interested, there is an eye-opening discussion thread about Nuance in the MacRumors forum. Link:
link to macrumors.com thread discussing Nuance
Post #18 of that discussion thread contains a link to a NYTimes article on the botched purchase of Dragon from the original developer, immediate collapse of the buying company, and allegations of improprieties by Goldman Sachs in facilitating the transaction. This background provides useful insight into the subsequent fragmented development and marketing of the Dragon voice recognition software.
Implementation of voice recognition systems has been beneficial to some, but has also been disruptive to others, particularly among medical professionals. Now we are seeing more disruption to Mac users. Hopefully a more customer- and user-friendly company (Apple, maybe?) will step in to fill the void.
Yes: Voice Typing in Google Docs.
To activate Voice Typing (you must use Chrome): Command-Shift-S
I have been able to write 2 books (to be published soon), thanks to this fabulous feature.
Andā¦ itās free!
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Just out of curiosity Iāve been using the built-in dictation in the Macintosh for the last few days. It definitely is not as good as Dragon but it has come along way since the last time I gave it a serious effort. I recommend giving it a try but if you do make sure to download the voice files in the settings first so it works better.
As an example, I have dictated this full posts using the built-in dictation and not made any corrections.
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Does it accept external microphones or do you have to use the one on your Mac?