This post began as a quick post about the update to MacSpeech Dictate — software that brings accurate voice recognition technology to the Mac. Dictate was first released a little over a year ago and was the first time that voice recognition on the Mac worked well. It was built on the Dragon NaturallySpeaking Version 9 engine and, while falling short of that application and its accuracy, worked fairly well. Version 1.5 of the software just began shipping last week. At first I was a little miffed because it was a rather expensive upgrade but then the customer service rep explained that it’s actually entirely new software. This version is built on Dragon’s Version 10 and brings world-class voice-recognition to the Mac. How good is it? I just dictated this first paragraph without having to make one correction.

There was, however, a bit of a problem.

The version that initially shipped allowed me to use the internal mic on my MacBook for voice recognition. No, it wasn’t the most accurate thing in the world. The recognition did decrease significantly when I didn’t use a noise canceling headset. But the convenience of being able to sit in front of my MacBook and simply speak without having to worry about headsets and a variety of cords running from my MacBook, made it a worthwhile trade-off. Unfortunately, this new updated software doesn’t allow the internal mic to be used at all. It makes sense since someone using the internal mic might encounter a significant reduction in the quality of the recognition and that reflects badly on the manufacturer but it was nothing short of a major annoyance for me. I don’t want to have to carry a headset. I don’t want to have to deal with it. And I’m willing to give up a little bit of accuracy for the convenience. And I want that to be my choice not to companies.

And that’s really where the gist of this post comes in –

It took me about seven minutes of googling to find people who had encountered the same issue, wanted the same outcome, and had posted workarounds. And it actually turns out that it’s a simple workaround.

There’s a little piece of free software from RogueAmoeba called LineIn that allows the internal mic to be fed into the virtual audio device application Soundflower (corrected) which is then recognized by the software as a microphone. Simple and quick. Best of all it works! In fact, I’ve gotten to this point in the post without a headset and have not had one inaccuracy in the transcription.

There is something wonderful about the online community. Strangers are often willing to share their knowledge and support with others. Developers create all kinds of software and give it away for pennies or even free. And people who have an issue and find a way to resolve it are often more than happy to post the solution so that others don’t have to spend time searching for it.

By the way, if you do get the new version of MacSpeech Dictate the solution/workaround for using the internal mic can be found here.

A note to the good folks at MacSpeech –

Your software is fantastic. It finally stands up to the accuracy that I lost when I made the move from Windows to Mac. I am absolutely blown away by the accuracy of this new version and the fact that it is far faster than the previous release. Between this new software and the fact that I’m using a superfast notebook, I’m able to speak as quickly as I want and have the transcription pretty much keep up with what I want to say.   This new version of the software  is worth every penny, whether buying it outright or paying for the upgrade, even if it is rather expensive as software goes these days. But please recognize this — it ought to be the customer’s choice whether or not they want to trade off convenience for accuracy. And more importantly – the accuracy doesn’t suffer one bit from using the internal mic because I’m now at the end of this post and there’s not been one time I had any problem whatsoever with the software recognizing what I wanted to say.

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Related posts:

1. MacSpeech Dictate Updated To Version 1.5
2. Big News For MacSpeech And OS X-Based Voice Recognition
3. MacSpeech Releases Scribe Personal Transcription Software
4. MacSpeech Scribe – First Look/Review