Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate

External Since: Sep 09, 2006 Posts: 2861

In article
<c5c8c07c-80a4-4c2d-a525-639d4780fae5 RemoveThis @z17g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
Chuck Rogers <chuck.rogers RemoveThis @gmail.com> wrote:

> 2). It is true that version 1.0 does not have a Spelling Mode or
> Correction, partly for the reason mentioned above. We decided it would
> be better to get this amazingly accurate product out sooner rather
> than later, and then provide free updates to include those features as
> we get them working and properly tested.

Chuck,:

Will these additional features be offered as no-cost upgrades to
existing 1.0 users?

What is MacSpeech's policy with regards to paid upgrades? If I purchase
Dictate today, how long will it be before I am expected to pay for an
upgrade to the software?

--
Note: Please send all responses to the relevant news group. E-mail
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JR

External Since: Mar 23, 2008 Posts: 1

On Mar 7, 2:32 pm, Mark Conrad <non... RemoveThis @urbusiness.invalid> wrote:
> In article <070320081222577558%s...@sky.net>, Davoud <s... RemoveThis @sky.net>
> wrote:
>
> > I apologize for having said that Dictate is a port of DNS. The moment I
> > posted and read my post I knew that that wasn't right; I was aware that
> > MacSpeech had only licensed Nuance's speech engine.
>
> > Speaking for myself, I would be quite happy if Dictate could put text
> > in only one text editor -- its own note pad. Copying and pasting from
> > there to some final destination--Scrivener, Word, whatever, would be a
> > trivial task. I use DNS in this way because it is the most convenient
> > for me. If MacSpeech hasn't already done so, it might be worth
> > MacSpeech's time to find out what other users think about this.
> > Eliminating the need to make Dictate compatible with a myriad of other
> > writers' tools ought to save some time and money.
>
> > Davoud
>
> Davoud, I would like to throw my 3 cents worth in also.
>
> We know that MacSpeech is a small company that sells a
> specialized line of speech products.
>
> A wrong management decision could easily put them out
> of business. Frankly, I am amazed that they managed to
> stay in business all these years, given <ahem> the
> performance of their earlier software.
>
> That said, I am certain that their loyal Mac customers
> will cut them a lot of slack. Heck, I bought iListen
> over the years, even though I knew ahead of time that
> it was not the greatest software in the world.
>
> I would buy it, try it out, then revert to using Dragon
> for serious work - - - but the point is I wanted to support
> MacSpeech in their efforts to bring great speech technology
> to the Mac platform.
>
> Lately, MacSpeech is making all the right decisions, in my
> modest opinion. Right now they have good cash flow, and the
> prospect of continuing that good cash flow, once the "new" has
> worn off of MacSpeech Dictate.
>
> How successful the are in maintaining their 'momentum' depends
> on how happy they can keep their customers, which they know.
>
> Keeping their customers happy _while_ retaining a good
> cash flow is a delicate balancing act, which they also know.
>
> All that said, now let's get down to the nitty-gritty and
> discuss features.
>
> > I would be quite happy if Dictate could put text
> > in only one text editor -- its own note pad.
>
> I second that desire, Davoud. It is much more important
> to me that MacSpeech should concentrate on correction
> features, rather than fritter away there efforts on trying
> to get 'Dictate' to support every application on the Mac.
>
> MacSpeech already knows, I think, that the really big cash
> returns on their speech software come from the people who
> use the dictation/correction features, rather than from
> the people who use the convenience features, such as
> supporting every damn application on the Mac.
>
> (12 billion dollars annually taken in
> by transcription services in the USA)
>
> Clipping and pasting text to _any_ Mac app' is a quick
> and trivial task.
>
> (supporting form entries being the exception,
> that is _not_ a trivial feature to implement)
>
> Gaining overall speed through excellent correction features
> is _not_ a trivial task.
>
> That requires much time, effort, and development cost, not to
> mention listening carefully to one's customers to learn what
> is slowing them down in correcting their raw text.
>
> It would be nice of course, if MacSpeech could be all things
> to all people, and keep _all_ types of the Mac customers
> happy:
>
> 1) The "dictation/overall-speed" bunch.
>
> 2) The "I want it to support my 200 Mac apps" bunch.
>
> 3) The "I want to use speech recognition
> to fill out all my paperwork forms" bunch.
>
> Site below gives some insight to the last bunch.
>
> <http://skylinefamilypractice.net/EMR/SpeechRecognitionForFamilyMedicine.
> htm>
>
> I would not want to be in MacSpeech management, trying to
> juggle all these conflicting issues.
>
> Back to my 3 cents worth. I have spent many thousands
> of dollars over the years to support my dictation 'habit'.
>
> Dragon is getting greedy, they recently jacked up the price
> of their Dragon medical version to $1,200 - a $200 increase.
>
> ...without doing a damn thing to improve it.
>
> I would leap at the chance to throw some of my money to
> MacSpeech, if for no other reason than to foster competition.
>
> In any event, good luck MacSpeech with your new product,
> however you decide to improve it in future versions.
>
> Mark-

I totally agree with Mark's comments. MacSpeech should concentrate on
making "Note Pad" as user friendly as IBM Via Voice for OS X's
"SpeakPad" (AND without some of the bugs that plagued SpeakPad!)
Speak Pad has a "spelling" mode, which is ESSENTIAL (just try
dictating Canadian postal codes, or a word that Dictate can't spell,
without it!). It can change the case of selected text (capitalize,
upper or lower case it) - also a critical feature when a phrase needs
capitalization after having been transcribed by the program in lower
case. "SpeakPad" provides a numbered list of alternative choices for
words that are flagged by the user for correction. It can flag words
that are corrected in a dictation session for training at the end of
the session, and also add them on the fly to its vocabulary. It can
improve its voice model from regular dictations. It can play back the
user's voice clip synced to a text selection. Although it also
supports direct dictation into applications such as Word, because some
of the correction features are not available in those applications, I
virtually never used direct dictation.

I think it was plain wrong of MacSpeech to release Dictate without --
at the very least -- a spelling mode, and some way of training it to
recognize new words and phrases. I have been trying all day to get it
to recognize a few technical words that I use frequently to no avail,
because although it has added their SPELLING to its vocabulary, it
clearly has no idea how they are pronounced, and therefore can't
recognize them. For now I'm going back to ViaVoice, and hoping
MacSpeech will come out with their free upgrade providing basic
functionality SOON.

- Bob