Home Forums Mac Software Mac Operating Systems Dictation app on Mountain Lion

Apparently, my early 2008 Mac Pro can handle Mountain Lion. I'm mostly interested in Mountain Lion's Dictation feature. Can it handle long dictation without pauses or is it like the iPhone 4S where you have to pause every minute to let it catch up?

Also, is the dictation feature handled locally on the Mac or does it need to "call home" on the Internet to get the voice to text transcription done?

It works just like Siri on the iPhone/iPad. In fact the only difference is it is limited strictly to the dictation function and does not answer questions like, "Siri, I need a wakeup, where is the nearest Starbucks?" as Siri does on the iPhone. However, I suspect there is a lot more to come from the Siri technology on OS X.

FWIW, I find that Dictation is a lot more accurate when I use a USB headset, but if the room is quiet the builtin microphone is adequate.

Thanks for the tip on the USB headset.
When I dictate on the iPhone4S, I find that I have to pause every few seconds to let it catch up. When I tried to read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address without stopping, it gave up. I'm wondering if Mountain Lion on a Mac with dual quad core Xeon processors and 8GB RAM can do better than that.

The initial attraction I had to Dragon Naturally Speaking v12 was that I could keep my dictation confined to my computer and not have it zipping around on the Internet to complete the translation. That's why I asked about Mountain Lion's transcription method.

Here is another tip. Apple has had voice command capabilities for years. Long before OS X even. It can be activated in System Preferences > Accessibility > Speakable Items. The speakable items commands are Applescripts stored in ~/Library/Speech/Speakable Items and the name of the Applescript file is the name of the command.

If you are not adept at writing Applescripts, you can simply open the Applescript Editor, click Record and perform a series of steps, that will be recorded as an Applescript. Save that in the Speakable Items folder with the appropriate name and you have just created a speakable item. It may be that simple or you may have to do some tweaking either of the script itself or of the script name so that it is recognizable to Speakable Items, but it does work and can be a useful shortcut to often repeated actions on your Mac.

Thanks. I'll try it.

IIRC, JoBoy is trying to find a way to record long texts, and have the computer/phone do the typing. I tried the Gettysburg Address on my 4s today, into a Google document, and it took three sections of recording to get it done. it seems that the iPhone will record about 20 seconds or so before it has to stop and process the speech. It was quite accurate, short of commas, and I found that got pretty quick hitting the button to start the next section, so I would estimate it took less than two minutes to have a pretty decent transcription of the GA in a Google doc file.

Thanks for the reply. You got essentially the same result that I did. My initial question was whether the Dictation feature on Mountain Lion, working on my Mac Pro, will eliminate the need to pause. I'm trying to get around the pause. I bought Dragon Naturally Speaking v 12 and it would not work as advertised. Many of the reviews of Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac are very uncomplimentary. I've given up on Nuance. I'm looking for a workaround and am wondering if Mountain Lion's Dictation feature can handle two pages of text without any pauses. Pauses don't work for my project.

You're working from cassette tapes or some other recorded media, right? The pauses would be a real pain, definitely.

Yes. They are dual digital recorders. They replaced tapes several years ago. The content is a twenty minute speech that goes on and does not pause. If the transcription software pauses, the effort is toast. I'm concerned about running them on the Internet because they are highly confidential and proprietary. That's why I tried Dragon Naturally Speaking. It would not work on Mac=> VMware=> Windows 7=> Dragon Naturally Speaking v12. I had hoped that it would work because it does all its work on my computer. It failed because their tech people told me it needed PC hardware to function and that it wouldn't work with VMware on the Mac. Unfortunately, their sales people told me that it WOULD work. When I challenged the tech people about that, the tech people told me that the sales people "exaggerate." I haven't tried Parallels 8. Frankly, I was so severely disappointed with Nuance's sales, applications and technical support that I don't want to go back there...ever! I wish Apple would buy them out completely and clean up their software and implement Apple customer service. Then, I'd go back, but that's a long time from now if ever. So, I'm looking for alternatives and that's why I posted here again.

I know this is a long shot because I suspect the reason for the pauses is that the iPhone is "calling home" over the Internet to the mother ship where the transcription is done. That introduces the concern that the information is more vulnerable to hacking than if I do it on my own computer. That is also why I have iCloud turned off. I do my sync locally through ITunes.

After some digging, I've learned that the Dictation feature on Mountain Lion does use Apple's servers to do the transcription. For me, that won't work. Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac is the only hope. Some people think it's great. I'll have to wait a while to overcome the disappointment I had with Dragon Naturally Speaking and VMware before I dare try a Nuance product again. To those chipping in on the thread, thanks. I really appreciate this Forum. The folks here are real people with a lot of knowledge. It's a privilege to have been with you since the forum went on the air. It's hard to really feel that it has been over three years. Time has passed quickly. Have a great Thanksgiving.