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In October 2018, Nuance announced that it has discontinued Dragon Professional Individual for Mac and will support it for only 90 days from activation in the US or 180 days in the rest of the world. The continuous speech-to-text software was widely considered to be the gold standard for speech recognition, and Nuance continues to develop and sell the Windows versions of Dragon Home, Dragon Professional Individual, and various profession-specific solutions.
This move is a blow to professional users—such as doctors, lawyers, and law enforcement—who depended on Dragon for dictating to their Macs, but the community most significantly affected are those who can control their Macs only with their voices.
What about Apple’s built-in accessibility solutions? macOS does support voice dictation, although my experience is that it’s not even as good as dictation in iOS, much less Dragon Professional Individual. Some level of voice control of the Mac is also available via Dictation Commands, but again, it’s not as powerful as what was available from Dragon Professional Individual.
TidBITS reader Todd Scheresky is a software engineer who relies on Dragon Professional Individual for his work because he’s a quadriplegic and has no use of his arms. He has suggested several ways that Apple needs to improve macOS speech recognition to make it a viable alternative to Dragon Professional Individual:
- Support for user-added custom words: Every profession has its own terminology and jargon, which is part of why there are legal, medical, and law enforcement versions of Dragon for Windows. Scheresky isn’t asking Apple to provide such custom vocabularies, but he needs to be able to add custom words to the vocabulary to carry out his work.
- Support for speaker-dependent continuous speech recognition: Currently, macOS’s speech recognition is speaker-independent, which means that it works pretty well for everyone. But Scheresky believes it needs to become speaker-dependent, so it can learn from your corrections to improve recognition accuracy. Also, Apple’s speech recognition isn’t continuous—it works for only a few minutes before stopping and needing to be reinvoked.
- Support for cursor positioning and mouse button events: Although Scheresky acknowledges that macOS’s Dictation Commands are pretty good and provide decent support for text cursor positioning, macOS has nothing like Nuance’s MouseGrid, which divides the screen into a 3-by-3 grid and enables the user to zoom in to a grid coordinate, then displaying another 3-by-3 grid to continue zooming. Nor does Apple have anything like Nuance’s mouse commands for moving and clicking the mouse pointer.
When Scheresky complained to Apple’s accessibility team about macOS’s limitations, they suggested the Switch Control feature, which enables users to move the pointer (along with other actions) by clicking a switch. He talks about this in a video.
Unfortunately, although Switch Control would let Scheresky control a Mac using a sip-and-puff switch or a head switch, such solutions would be both far slower than voice and a literal pain in the neck. There are some better alternatives for mouse pointer positioning:
- Dedicated software, in the form of a $35 app called iTracker.
- An off-the-shelf hack using Keyboard Maestro and Automator.
- An expensive head-mounted pointing device, although the SmartNav is $600 and the HeadMouse Nano and TrackerPro are both about $1000. It’s also not clear how well they interface with current versions of macOS.
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Regardless, if Apple enhanced macOS’s voice recognition in the ways Scheresky suggests, it would become significantly more useful and would give users with physical limitations significantly more control over their Macs… and their lives. If you’d like to help, Scheresky suggests submitting feature request feedback to Apple with text along the following lines (feel free to copy and paste it):
Because Nuance has discontinued Dragon Professional Individual for Mac, it is becoming difficult for disabled users to use the Mac. Please enhance macOS speech recognition to support user-added custom words, speaker-dependent continuous speech recognition that learns from user corrections to improve accuracy, and cursor positioning and mouse button events.
Thank you for your consideration!
Thanks for encouraging Apple to bring macOS’s accessibility features up to the level necessary to provide an alternative to Dragon Professional Individual for Mac. Such improvements will help both those who face physical challenges to using the Mac and those for whom dictation is a professional necessity.
Dragon for Mac drives individual productivity at work by enabling fast, highly accurate dictation and transcription with the right level of customization to speed document creation. This easy-to-use solution lets you add custom words such as specific industry terminology, insert frequently-used text or shortcut repetitive tasks by voice to work faster and smarter.
The fastest and most accurate way to interact with your computer
- Delivers up to 99% speech recognition accuracy right out of the box
- Get highly accurate speech recognition results with no training required
- Eliminate spelling concerns and minimize corrections
- Enjoy superior reliability and performance with Dragon’s strong technology foundation
- Provides a personalized voice-driven experience
- Achieve increasingly accurate results the more you use it
- Enjoy personalized accuracy; Dragon learns the words and phrases you use the most and spells even difficult words and proper names correctly
- Further enhance accuracy with optional advanced training or analysis of existing documents
- Work your way using Smart Format Rules; dictate naturally and the text appears as you intended it to
- Work effortlessly with a solution that just “gets” you and how you speak
- Performs with fast response times and minimal latency
- Talk at normal speeds and see words appear on the screen almost instantly
- Receive immediate feedback on what you say so you can check it right away
Never lose a beat in your train of thought; Dragon captures your ideas as fast as you can speak them.
Use your voice to dictate documents or enter text anywhere you normally type
Dragon eliminates barriers to productivity and creativity by letting you interact with your computer by voice. It turns your spoken thoughts into text and your voice commands into action so you don’t have to worry about the mechanics of typing and spelling.
- Think out loud
- Overcome writer’s block
- Express yourself more creatively
- Avoid spelling errors
- Capture ideas up to three times faster than typing
- Multitask thanks to hands-free interaction
- Enter text quickly in forms, chats, social media, blogs and more
Edit and format documents — all by voice
Dragon not only lets you dictate up to three times faster than typing, but it also allows you to make edits and apply formatting using your voice. You can select text and apply formatting such as bold, underline, capitals and more, or just speak to make needed changes. Smart Format Rules automatically adapt to how you want abbreviations, numbers and more to appear, so you don’t have to correct them every time.
- Make edits and format text quickly—faster than using your mouse and keyboard
- Automatically format text to appear the way you want it to—every time
Easily switch between keyboard, mouse and voice so you can use the mode of input you prefer for any given task.
Automate business processes with time-saving workflows
Create AppleScripts, Automator Workflows, or shell scripts and let Dragon for Mac activate them by voice to automate simple workflows or multi-step business processes via simple voice commands.
Command and control your computer by voice
Launch applications, select menu items, press keys, switch between windows, search the Web, create and send emails and more all by voice, if you wish. Dragon for Mac gives you the flexibility to:
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- Work hands-free, if desired
- Experience more ergonomic comfort when working on your computerreatively
- Feel less stress and strain on your body
- Multitask by using your voice to dictate and execute commands
Choose your microphone option for freedom and flexibility
With automatic microphone detection, Dragon will conveniently show you which microphones are available for you to use. With Dragon for Mac you can also use multiple audio device types within the same profile, enabling you to easily switch to another microphone while keeping all your personalized preferences for accuracy and formatting. This is useful if, for example, you use a USB mic at home, a wireless mic at work and your Mac’s built-in mic when you’re on the go. You have the option to use:
- Microphones built into all MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac computers: You’re free to dictate documents and speak commands directly into your Mac without using a headset for optimal flexibility and convenience
- Wireless Bluetooth mic: Use a Nuance-certified Bluetooth headset microphone for outstanding wireless performance and the freedom to move while working on your computer
- Any other Nuance-approved microphone: See support.nuance.com/compatibility for more information.
Easy to get started, easy to master
Dragon Professional Individual makes it easy to get started with speech recognition and to become proficient quickly with regular use. It’s also simple to explore more advanced features that can boost your productivity even further.
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- Fast, easy set-up gets you going with speech recognition in no time
- Helpful tutorials make it easy to become productive right away
- An intuitive design provides easy access to a rich and powerful feature set for ever-increasing productivity gains
Additional help with in-context guidance at any time, giving you not only a hint on the spot but allowing you to learn these essential commands over time.
Sync with separate Dragon Anywhere mobile app
Dragon Anywhere is a separate, cloud-based app that provides continuous dictation capabilities, letting you create and edit documents of any length by voice—using your own customized words, shortcuts and commands—directly on your iOS or Android device. It adapts to your voice and terminology so you can dictate, edit, navigate and format quickly and accurately within your document from anywhere. Your documents, preferences and customizations can be synced with Dragon desktop offerings for seamless productivity wherever your job takes you. Gain immediate access to your dictation without having to wait or rely on a costly transcription service so can spend more time contributing to your bottom line and less time behind a desk completing administrative tasks.
Enjoy a more intuitive user experience
Dragon for Mac appears in the OS X menu bar, making all features easily accessible from a single menu. You can now change profiles right from the menu as well as instantly access preferences and tools to improve recognition. Dragon for Mac features a newly redesigned Status Window, looking more modern and at home on OS X Yosemite, incorporates a new guidance feature which displays the most common next steps relative to the actions you’re taking at that moment, making it even easier to use.
Menu walking
Select items in any menu by voice. Menu walking lets you say “click File Menu” and the File menu opens, or say “click New File” and it works just like clicking a mouse.
Improved support for internal microphones for freedom and flexibility
Now you have enhanced accuracy in using microphones built into all MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac computers. You’re free to dictate documents and speak commands directly into your Mac without using a headset for optimal flexibility and convenience.
Get enhanced support for more accents
Dragon for Mac offers improved recognition of Canadian, SE Asian, Indian, and Australian English accents.
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Gain powerful voice control in Word 2016
Dragon for Mac provides support for Word 2016 with Full Text Control and built-in commands lets you effortlessly mix talking and typing.
Save transcribed files as Microsoft Word documents
Transcription results can now be saved as .RTF or Microsoft Word format and opened in your application of choice. Previously, transcription results appeared in the Notepad, meaning you had to copy and paste them into your favorite application.
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 Ghz or faster processor - Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 recommended
- Free hard disk space: 4GB
- Supported Operating Systems: OS X Mavericks (10.9) or OS X Yosemite (10.10)
- RAM: 4GB, 8GB+ recommended
- A DVD-ROM drive
- An Internet connection for installation and automatic product activation (a quick anonymous process)
- Built-in microphone or a Nuance-approved microphone. See support.nuance.com/compatibility for more information
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 Ghz or faster processor - Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 recommended
- Free hard disk space: 8GB
- Supported Operating Systems: OS X Mavericks (10.9) or OS X Yosemite (10.10)
- RAM: 4GB, 8GB+ recommended
- An Internet connection for installation and automatic product activation (a quick anonymous process)
- Built-in microphone or a Nuance-approved microphone. See support.nuance.com/compatibility for more information