Following. I also gave up on Dragon Dictate on MacOs but haven't got around to installing Windows and Dragon for Windows and learning all the hassles that entails. I haven't found any other good options FWIW.

I also installed Parallels and the Windows version of DPI 15 about a month ago. It takes an extra minute to launch Parallels, true, but that is nothing compared to the DAYS or WEEKS I wasted over the past three years trying to get Dictate to work on the Mac. I'm still confused why Nuance couldn't have done a better job with Dictate.

We can't guarantee the following answer but we suspect that Nuance only puts a fraction of the time into Mac development as for Windows development because that's where the money is. There are probably a lot of reasons but keep in mind that the Mac OS takes up 8% of computers while Windows is used on 91% of computers. For this reason, Mac is typically overlooked entirely or merely an afterthought for developers.

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Just curious, why are you staying with the Mac? Have you considered switching to Windows?

In 2009 I started to work as an independent researcher. I needed something with a powerful processor and a lot of RAM to run SQL-based qualitative research software (QSR NVivo -- it's v good). I could not afford to lug round a Dell Alienware (no-one would take me seriously) and I couldn't justify a desktop and a laptop -- so I bought a MacBook Pro, specified to the max, and ran Windows 7, NVivo and DNS on it via Bootcamp. It worked fine for me and subsequently I stuck with MacBook Pros. But I wouldn't make the same choice now....

I gave up on the Mac version and switched to DMPE 2.3. Haven't regretted it since. Better recognition and a ton more features. Turns out, some days I like Windows 10 better than macOS. Would consider switching all together but I'm engrained into the Apple ecosystem (iPhone, iPad, AppleTV's, etc.), which is exactly where Apple wants a customer. For most things I still use my MacBook Pro. My Dell Precision 3520 (Xeon 3.1 GHz with Turbo to 4.0 GHz, 32 GB ECC RAM, 15" screen, 1 TB SSD) screams! Way overkill for DMPE, but I like it.

I use Boot Camp to run Dragon professional individual 15, SpeechStart+, and Knowbrainer 2017 on my maxed out 2017 MacBook Pro and it runs quite smoothly. However, I first tried to use it on a virtual machine and it had many hiccups especially SppechStart+. The only annoying thing about this route is that you have to restart your computer anytime you want to switch between Windows 10 and Mac OS.

DPI for Mac crashes whenever I try to dictate into Word. Still hasn't resolved. I'm running whatever latest Word edition there is (Office 365 subscriber) with macOS High Sierra.

I don't think there is a dictation window to dictate into and then transfer text with DPI for Mac.

Unfortunately, Dragon Individual Professional for Mac version 6 does not work properly with most text programs. I have tried a bunch of them. The most stable text program to use is Apple's TextEdit. The next stable programs are Microsoft Word 2016 and Google Docs  using the Chromebrowser. Dictating into Firefox works reasonably well also. I do not use Safari with Google Docs.

Scrivener version 2 works more or less as well. The cache document command has to be used frequently. Scrivener version 3 does not work. Apple Pages does not work either.  Neither do Nisus Writer, Libre Office, and Mellel.

The only reasonable way to use Dragon on the Mac that I found is by using a headset microphone that keeps both of my hands free for typing and for correcting mistakes immediately. Otherwise, the opportunity to train the program will be lost. Trying to use Dragon for selecting text and correcting previous mistakes generally makes a royal mess of your document.

I am not aware of any other alternative than Apple's own dictation, which makes more errors than Dragon. However, you can use VMware Fusion, for example, to run Microsoft Windows on the Macintosh, which in turn can run the Windows versions of Dragon.

I hope that helps.

It is really sad to be using Dragon 5.0.5 for Mac and be considering purchasing version 6.0 to come here and find such a dismal report. Even though version 5 does not work very well at least it works. After reviewing the various threads, I'll just stick with what I have. I am both a Windows and Mac user so I have and enjoy DNS. But I find it very simple to work with a MacBook Pro hence my preference for a functional Mac alternative. I do understand the economic argument, also the argument about the prevalence of Mac versus Windows machines. But, you would think if you offer a product that the company would at least try to make it work especially as it is $150 for an upgrade from version 5 to version 6.

Nuance must be focusing their efforts on cloud-based dictation instead of improving their software.

Siri's getting pretty good so you could just use that if you want real-time transcription. I've detailed my workflow on the forum a few times, but I basically use anything with a mic (my iPhone) that dumps recordings to Dropbox linked to both my Mac and PC. The PC sees it (via Dragon's AutoTranscribe Folder Agent), then dumps the result in another dropbox folder which I open and edit on the mac (the .wav files are still in the original folder for reference).

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Win 7 i5: Dragon Professional Individual 14 w. Blue Yeti Mic
Win 7 C2D: Auto Transcribe Folder Agent (remotely using iPad / Dictate + Connect app / Buddy FlamingoMic 7G)

Siri for medical text to speech ? You get a hell of a problem with patient's data confidentiality...

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Memory: 16GB Microphone Brand and Model: LFH 4000 & Flexy Mike  Operating System: win 10, latest update; Surface Book 2, Processor (CPU) Type & Speed: I7 8650 Soundcard Brand and Model: none Speech Software: Dragon Medical Practice Edition, french version: 4.2 Using KnowBrainer?:Yes

Hello

I undertand you are using dragon dictate medical in french are you fully satisfied ?

Have you ever consider using the web based version of Dragon : Nuance Dragon Medial One. It is presented as more powerfull than the computer based version at least in English

Best regards

JC Bisserbe

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plb46500

I know of one practice that is switching to SayIt from nVoq (https://sayit.nvoq.com/) after testing and comparing with Dragon (not sure which version). It is a subscription/cloud-based solution but platform independent and cheaper than Dragon 360. The underlying technology from hearsay is licensed Microsoft speech engine based.

We have done a little nVoq investigating and in our opinion, it's not worth your time; other than being less expensive than DMPE 4.3 or DMO. “Less expensive” is not what most hospitals are looking for when they want what will increase their efficiency the most. Also keep in mind that you're not comparing SayIt to Medical 360 which is 5 years out of date. You're comparing it to the Dragon 15 speech engine which is vastly superior. SayIt also doesn't support Advanced-Scripting commands which is also being kicked up an additional notch with open-ended vocabulary command support (think AI). SayIt is currently so small that Nuance isn't suing them over patent infringement but should they manage to become much bigger, we suspect Nuance will go after them as they have done with M*Modal. In our opinion, it's not worth the risk or savings.

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I wonder if there will be a macOS version of DMO.

It's hard to say, with certainty but Nuance just discontinued and removed their single-user license of the Dragon Medical version for the Mac, which was also one version behind. The email we received from Nuance states that they have discontinued manufacturing and supporting Dragon Medical for Mac computers but will continue their consumer division. In reality, the Dragon Medical version was basically a consumer version of Dragon with medical vocabularies. However, DMO works a little differently so we are not certain

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Apparently Nuance has also given up on Dragon for Mac:
https://www.nuance.com/dragon/support/professional-individual-for-mac-eol.html

It's a shame, because I have finally come to an uneasy truce with Dragon 6, after years of developing hacks and workarounds. I did a quick (and fruitless) search for decent dictation alternatives on macOS. I've never been able to get DNS to run in a virtual machine on my MacBook Pro, and the IT department made me kill my Boot Camp partition for security reasons. So it looks like my days on a Mac are numbered. Maybe it's just as well, since I find the new keyboards on MacBooks to be offensive...

That's exactly right, based on discussions I've had with Nuance insiders. Unfortunately the cloud-based AI solutions are still far from catching up to local applications for serious dictation.

Best of health,
Shawn

Nuance may have originally planned on continuing the consumer DPI6 version of Dragon for Mac but decided to 86 it 3 weeks after 86ing Dragon Medical. Nuance probably couldn't justify the R&D cost of supporting Mac while developing other markets such as cloud computing on Windows and independent versions of AI. Developing anything on the Mac side tends to be far less profitable and typically receives less attention. Dragon versions for Mac were accurate but much less featured than the Windows versions. From watching television, you would think that the Mac OS is used on half of desktop, notebook and tablet computers but it's actually less than 10%. Windows dominates the market with an 88% share so that's where the money is. Most software developers either ignore the Mac market or look at the Mac OS as an afterthought. For example, KnowBrainer 2017 was never designed to run on a Mac. Thank goodness we didn't waste our time since Nuance pulled the plug anyway. Oddly enough, speech recognition sales simply didn't amount to a hill of beans. Our Mac sales averaged about .2% of our Dragon sales but we suspect this will eventually be a problem for Mac computer sales because at some point, everyone is going to be seriously using speech recognition. Even if you only dictate, no one can type 180 wpm and dictation is only the tip of the speech recognition iceberg.

As you pointed out, Nuance is struggling with many cloud computing capabilities that are only available on local installations such as Advanced-Scripting and AI like macros. We would like to see Nuance switch to a hybrid variation that is primary localized like Microsoft Office 365. This would take considerably less development and might just make everyone happy. Most Dragon end-users simply don't want cloud computing capabilities but there are some advantages.

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While I have a couple of virtual machines to run DPI, my business is Mac based.  I'm curious about using the built in MacOS dictation if Apple improves it.

In the publicity for the new MacOS Catalina, I note this and wonder if anyone has tried the beta for this yet:

 

The Siri utility is leased to Apple by Nuance. It is not very likely that much will be done other than adding some functionality. If Apple get speech recognition serious, they will either have to create their own or use another speech recognition utility, that is not presently known.

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Take a look here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlJG2qeQ1RE

Start at 12 minutes 30 seconds

I have no affiliation with the maker of this video

Unfortunately, I still haven't seen any informed comments about Catalina's supposed capabilities.

You won't find more than a handful of Catalina capabilities. Dragon is currently the only serious speech recognition utility. We can appreciate that there are a lot of Mac users but's Mac support is primarily an afterthought. Mac simply doesn't have the bulk of the market. The world pretty much runs on Windows. This is by no means an attack. We used to swear by Mac (circa 85' through 91').  We are simply rather pointing out that if you're serious about speech recognition, you will either have to install Windows on your Mac or switch to Windows. Most software developers simply do not support Mac because of Apple's slim market share. We are on that list. KnowBrainer 2017 does everything Dragon wish it could do but unlikely to ever support Mac and some of our technology is patented. We considered supporting Dragon for Mac but like Nuance, couldn't justify the cost. 

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Actually Catalina is still in beta testing.  Anyone who is a beta tester has signed an agreement upon becoming a beta tester not to discuss the features of Catalina.  But it is easy enough to become a beta tester and try out Catalina's features for yourself.  Apple is allowing members of the public to sign up to become beta testers. beta.apple.com

It is not apparently correct to say that Catalina offers only a handful of Dragon's capabilities. The following video was made during Catalina beta testing and may have improved since. Apple appear to have made a significant commitment to voice control. It is not known what the licensing arrangements with Nuance are but I suspect Apple has significant control over the software and its development. Nuance always seem cash starved whereas Apple is anything but.
https://www.macsparky.com/blog/2019/7/voice-control-is-a-game-changer-for-voice-to-text-dictation-apple-devices

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__________________________________________

iMac 27" (2015), MBPro (2019), WIN 10, Parallels, DPI 15.6, XTag microphone

I've come across an affordable alternative to Dragon Speech. https://voiceboxmd.com

Works smooth and covers all the medical terms necessary to complete your charting.

                   Welcome to the World's Most Popular Speech Recognition Forum

Keep in mind that there are several reasons why Nuance dominates the speech recognition market. One advantage is 20 years of development with up to 100 programmers. Nuance also holds nearly every conceivable patent so it's next to impossible for any company to compete and if any company manages to compete, the Nuance attorneys will sue them. All we are saying is that if speech recognition is going to play an important part in your workflow, stick with professionals. M*Modal is the current closest competitor and if you compare the 2, M*Modal costs less but simply isn't as good. On a personal level, we created KnowBrainer 2017 (third party command utility) which includes a concept we refer to as artificial intelligence that only works in Dragon products. All speech recognition companies can brag about dictation speed and accuracy but that's only 50% of the speech recognition equation. Other companies simply don't have it so while you will pay more for Dragon products, ask yourself what your time is really worth. Ignore speech recognition bragging (which includes us) and focus on efficiency. Having to cut and paste from the Dictation Box because your application isn't speech recognition friendly (lacks Select-&-Say) or doesn't include easy to remember multiple task commands, all take unnecessary time.

 

One last point: Third-party developers, like us, never bother with Dragon competitors because there is no profit but should also be factored into your speech recognition decision.

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Lunis,

I'd agree with you except that on both up to date, high powered Windows machines and virtual machines, I find that Dragon does a reasonable job of voice recognition but wraps it in such a mediocre, inefficient software that I'm constantly looking for some other way to get my documentation done. A competitor won't have to beat Dragon at voice recognition, merely provide adequate recognition in a more effective, useful package to beat Dragon. I'll be happy to give that developer my money.

If you find a decently accurate speech recognition utility, let us know; many have tried but failed. However, even if you do…

Speech recognition accuracy is barely half of the equation. Dragon's built-in commands, which took nearly 4 decades to develop, are the other half. Unless you are willing to take the extra time to “really” learn Dragon, you will not be able to appreciate the power which cannot be duplicated in any other speech recognition utility. This is equivalent to comparing Microsoft Word to WordPad. Yes this will take time but in our opinion, that extra time should pay for itself minimally tenfold

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I have been silently following this thread since it was started a couple of years ago.  As a long time Mac fan and reluctant Windows user, I want to share the dictation setup that I have been very content for the past year: I am using a MacBook Pro (2017, 16 GB Ram) with VMWare Fusion running Windows with Dragon Professional Individual (15.3; medical vocabulary). I currently use a VEC SoundTech GN-USB-2 gooseneck mic, but even lower quality mics worked reasonably well with this setup.

My needs for dictation software is geared towards dictating very long medical reports (i.e., neuropsychological reports that run 2 to 20 pages per patient, which often requires summarizing records from various medical speciality areas).  I typically do not use features outside of dictation, so I don't care much about the commands otherwise.  I have tried literally all versions of Dragon for Mac and it's predecessors since 2007.  I long avoided trying the Windows versions despite sage advice on this forum to do so, driven primarily by a disdain for using the Windows operating system.   Now that I have, I am very pleased, and there was a hidden benefit that I don't think has been mentioned elsewhere.  Because my microphone audio is connected to windows through VMWare, I can dictate while doing other things with my keyboard and mouse, such as scrolling through a long PDF of a medical record while switching to my EMR or searching the internet the appropriate dosage of a medication. If I were multitasking in a similar manner using just Dragon for Mac or Catalina's built in dictation, then it would be trying to dictate the text wherever my cursor happens to be, instead of directing all of the text to Word in Windows.   I've grown to love that incidental advantage with true multitasking.  The accuracy and lack of bugs with customizations with running Dragon Professional Individual has been entirely satisfactory.  I hope this helps any fellow Mac users who may have been reluctant to use Windows.

Hello

I have come across ypour message for the answer I was looking for but before cancelling my order for PC I woild like you to confirm that the set-up you described in your post few months ago is still working ? I mean are you still very satisfied with this set-up I intend to use speech recognition for medical report (in french) on a recent mac book air dual core with 16GB memory using Parallels. I wonder if you tried to use Nuance cloud base voice recognition:  Nuance Dragon Medial One (looks mre powerfull than  the computer base but would it work with a virtual machine)

I have been looking for solution for a, while and your post is the first one that could convince me that I do not need to buy a PC to get the full use of  Dragon dictate. I had use some 15 years ago Dragon naturally speakingon a PC I was not thrilled but I understand that major prgress had been made since.

Best regards from France

JC Bisserbe

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plb46500

Sorry for the delayed response, but yes, I am still satisified with this setup.  I have not tried Dragon Medical One.  

 

I have a couple of friends who routinely run Windows under a VMWare (or equivalent) setup on Macs. It's done all the time (and has been done for years), so I think the Windows/VMWare setup is pretty stable. None of my friends dictate with Dragon into Windows, but it doesn't surprise me that it's a great benefit to have Dragon dictate into the Windows OS while you page around on the Mac OS.

This idea of running Dragon/Windows in one virtual machine while working in another virtual machine would also work with a VMWare Windows/Windows setup, I imagine. Then you could happily dictate to one Windows instance while flipping through documents in the second Windows instance. That sounds so attractive to me that I should try it the next time I build a computer. You can buy Windows 10 for $15 these days from Amazon, so the Windows part is cheap. I don't know about the cost of the VMWare part. I suppose you could run Windows/Windows under Linux for zero dollars, but you'd have to do a pile of sysadmin, and who wants to do all that work? Ugh.

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Win10/11/x64, AMD Ryzen 7 3700X/3950X, 64/128GB RAM, Dragon 15.3, SP 7 Standard, SpeechStart, Office 365, KB 2017, Dragon Capture, Samson Meteor USB Desk Mic, Amazon YUWAKAYI headset, Klim and JUKSTG earbuds with microphones, 3 BenQ 2560x1440 monitors, Microsoft Sculpt Keyboard and fat mouse

Thank you for your response. Actually seen from my end it looks complex I have several Mac however I do not know their specifications are going to be sufficient for Dragon pro (medical) I wonder about buying another mac with spec that will fit for sure or buying a Dell and run speech recognition on it. I have tried to down load demo version of naturally speaking on my most recent mac so far the version I have found seems to be not working but I do know if it si my computer or the software...windows is so unusual after 35 years of mac use. Best regards jc



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plb46500

I'm running Dragon 15 on Win10 via VMWare Fusion on both a recent Macbook Pro and Mac Mini. No problems related to the VMs or the Mac hardware and, in fact, I strongly prefer this to have to work on a PC or having a separate PC for Dragon while doing most of my work on a Mac.

Thank you jc


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plb46500

Has anyone heard of a package called TalkType. https://talk-type.com/
The system specs look fine nothing too taxing,
TalkType requires MacOS Catalina 10.15.1 or later to work. 4GB RAM, 4GB Hard Disk Space required.

I am not sure about this; the website looks fine and we certainly could use another speech recognition tool for the Mac. I can only find is this slick looking https://talk-type.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Taktype-Animation-01-v0_2_3.mp4  on their website video.
Interestingly there are a few flavours the TalkType and they do captioning software which is interesting, on the face of it they have gone from nothing to 4 dictation tools and a captioning tool straight away. 
software Dictation Products
•    TalkType Dictation – Medical
•    TalkType Dictation – Legal
•    TalkType Professional
•    TalkType Dictation – Education
Captioning Products
•    Caption.Ed
•    Assessor – Caption.Ed
And at £140 it seems the right price
Whilst the video looks fine I havent seen any examples of anyone actually using it, after watching too many slick videos over the years may be I have become too sceptical

Speech recognition Mac related questions appear frequently but unfortunately the answer is always NO. There are currently no speech recognition utilities, including TalkType, that are worth bothering with. You will be just as well off with Siri. Dragon is still the only game in town and in our opinion, if you need a speech recognition productivity tool, you will have to install Parallels, VMware, or install Windows 10 on Boot Camp and then add DPI 15.3. We read that a PC version of TalkType will soon be released but we wouldn't count on it. While their website says 2020, all of their products and advertising reference 2016.  We wouldn't be surprised if they have thrown in the towel.  We also took their on-site test which appear to be working very well until we realized that we were still dictating with Dragon   When we toggled the Dragon microphone off their website test failed.    

 

Speech recognition and peripherals are the only items we sell at www.KnowBrainer.com. When any other speech recognition utility becomes marketable, we will offer it. TalkType couldn't hold a match against Dragon in the PC World (where the money is) so they had to go Mac because of the lack of competition. 

PS: Ignore manufacturer software computer spec recommendations because they are in the business of selling software; not computers. The rule of thumb is to double software recommendations. Even Nuance' is still recommending 4 Gb of RAM 

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Hi Everyone,
I am curious to know more about the built-in functionality of the MAC dictation software.
I am training a client using Windows and his university has sent him a MAC. He has played with using Dragon within Parallels but finds this painfull. I guess he might improve the experience by buying more RAM, although my local hardware chap says MAC books are painful to upgrade.
Does anyone have experience of the MAC dictation and can point me to some good learning resources?
I have not really explored MACS much, other than training on Assistive Technology running on it.
Thank you
Chris

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System Model XPS 9320

 

as far as apple support goes here's what I'm aware of 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210539

 it is possible to create your own commands if a little clunky.  ( you have to use the UI they provide  unless you're willing to modify some plists )

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210539#createyourown

If you say "what can I say", it will show you the window with all the commands you can say and in what contexts.   but it's not as good as dragons especially for correcting and selecting in select and say apps.

 

 the other options on Mac are 

 

• parallels w/ dpi.  mine works just fine but I have 64 GB.  ( I used to run it on VMware fusion,  and in comparison parallels feels almost native )
• talon voice w/ the latest conformer model,  but it's not really a full  dictation solution and really requires some programming knowledge.
• caster and dragonfly w/ kaldi.   which again is not really a full dictation solution and requires even more programming knowledge probably.

 

 good luck

 

We recommend forgetting about the Mac and any associated Mac speech recognition utilities. Just install Windows 10 into boot camp, so that they can take advantage of all of the RAM. It also works a little better than Parallels which divides your RAM. Then you can install Dragon and if he is disabled, KnowBrainer 2017 (w/2020 AI Commands).

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On Windows (or in Windows on a Mac), Talon can use Dragon as a voice recognition engine. That way you can have Dragon features (vocabulary, recognition, etc) + Talon features (fast deployment, Python, chained commands, and so on).

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