Articles
[28/03/2010] Mac Software For Big Personal Productivity Gains
Voice recognition application for the Mac OS X operating system has been obtainable for fairly a few years now, but the performance of the Mac applications has not been equivalent to the PC applications in recent times. A big advance became probable when Apple took on the Intel chip, and now Mac users are no longer at a comparative disadvantage.
The progress of voice recognition software for computers was a well-liked goal that proved to be a big confront for software suppliers during the 1980s. It took a long time to develop into efficient and reliable systems that were sufficiently useful to gain a large following of users.
By the late 1990s there were two main suppliers in this marketplace for the Apple Mac computers. They were IBM with their product ViaVoice, and a small start-up company known as MacSpeech with a product called ListenDo! In 2000 IBM created a Millennium version of ViaVoice and MacSpeech created iListen, both of which were important advances in performance that worked well enough to win over a growing marketplace. The two products shared the Mac market around half each.
Meanwhile Windows PC voice recognition application users were presented with a option between IBM's ViaVoice and a product shaped by Dragon. Dragon Naturally Speaking appeared as a stronger offering and by 2003 IBM announced that it was withdrawing from the voice recognition application market for both the Windows PC and Mac markets.
Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition application and dictation application software came to dominate its sector of the marketplace for the Windows PC. The superiority of this software continued to evolve and is now a very functional and practical solution popular with many users.
With the removal of IBM's ViaVoice software for the Mac, MacSpeech became the main voice recognition application supplier for the Mac. The excellence of the iListen product continued to evolve but could never quite equivalent the speed and accuracy that was being experienced by Dragon consumers on the PC.
Part of the complexity that MacSpeech had in matching the performance of the Dragon software was connected to the technology dissimilarities between the PowerPC chip used on the Mac and the Intel chip used on the PC. When Apple chose to toggle to using the Intel chip technology in the Mac, MacSpeech produced, in 2008, a new version of its software called MacSpeech Dictate. This version was able to use similar technology to that employed by Dragon, and closed the gap between the performance of the voice recognition software applications accessible for the PC and Mac.
Today, Mac consumers are no longer at a disadvantage in comparison to PC users when it comes to voice recognition and dictation application software. Speech recognition software allows worthwhile productivity gains, and provides access to computers to those who have complexity using the usual keyboard and mouse devices to input data and commands.
MacSpeech Dictate now appears in versions for 13 diverse English speaking regions and demographics, and for French, German and Italian languages. There are also particular technical vocabulary versions in English for the medical and legal professions, which make easy more accurate dictation using the many very exact technical terms and phrases used in these professions.
