This is a blog entry I've been wanting to make for long time. Speech recognition on a Macintosh is nowhere near its PC counterparts. However, I'm happy to say that I feel it's finally feasible.
I've been using iListen on my Intel-based MacBook for the past two months, and I can report success. Please, make no mistake: this is not a review. This is simply a quick note to describe my happiness with the product. Let me back up a bit:
In an earlier posting, on "Health and the Computer User," I talked about some of the challenges that RSI and carpal tunnel syndrome cause the typist/mouse jockey. I always look for ways to lessen the usage of my wrists and fingers, or at least ease the times I do use them. To that end, using my 2GB PowerBook G4, I initially tried iListen. Like some other applications that I've come back to, I initially abandoned it as the training and re-typing were not only slowing me down, but probably stressing my wrists more.
Fast forward to a shiny new dual-core 3GB Intel MacBook Pro and the promise of a new-and-improved version of iListen that claimed a 5-minute setup and higher accuracy, well, the upgrade fee was worth the risk. (Also, the download-ability of the software made it a lot easier).
I'm here to tell you that the 5-minute setup claim is pretty dead-on. Imagine my surprise when, after installation and a quick training session, that close to 95% of my speech was recognized accurately. I'm also a tough subject as I do a lot of technical writing with non-typical words.
I honestly don't know if it's the code, the muscle of the dual-core Intel chips, or some combination thereof, but iListen 1.7 has absolutely changed the way I get words into a computer. It's certainly not perfect, and I also have more to learn about the program, but it is saving my wrist(s).
To get an idea of how it works, watch this video (click to watch):
You'll notice several things:
1) The type lags the speech. This is a feature and not a bug ;-). iListen tries to derive the proper word based on context, so, sometimes it tries to 'listen ahead'.
2) It goofed ("Eat up Martha."). iListen has a correction mode that will help it learn new words and to better catch what you're saying. I left the mistakes in the video, but (obviously) cleaned them up here.
3) You'll notice that you must. Speak. Each. And. Every. Punctuation. Mark. Not terrible, but something to get used to. The "space space" thing is my own hang-up: iListen will properly put a single space after a period without having to ask it to do so.
The point of all this is simple: if you need a Mac-based dictation program for any reason, now is the time to jump in with iListen. It'll save your wrists/hands/fingers/arms, or, enable you to input via speech no matter the reason. If you need a Windows-based dictation application, well then, you already have Naturally Speaking. Head over to http://www.macspeech.com and check it out yourself. Don't forget that you'll need a certified microphone (neither the internal MacBook mics nor a Neumann would cut it (!)), and Bluetooth doesn't count.
