Review by Kyle Slayzar

Multitasking on a computer is a must these days making streamlining the experience all the more prevalent. Voice commands would be the next logical step as our hands are already tied up and vocal tasking allows us to do another set of tasks. Problem is that vocal recognition has never been a perfected science in the consumer market for everyday users and detailed command lists, or lack thereof, make marketing such products even more difficult. Sure, word processing dictation is a handy tool for recording meetings and legal procedures but most authors, writers, and casual users prefer to type by hand given the lacking accuracy of said dictation software.

Dragon Dictate attempts to bridge this gap for Mac users and accomplishes a good amount but fails at the rudimentary basics. In short, this product is NOT ready for wide distribution oh, too late.

For me, I needed software that allows me to multitask Safari and Final Cut Pro but know that having vocal commands for the latter is a long way off. However, it would’ve been nice to have vocal software that can help navigate menus more seamlessly than using a touchpad or keyboard. It’s like the XBox Kinect or Sony Move as they require more effort to execute an action that can be exponentially easier just but touching a button making it more gimmicky than practical. Dragon Dictate suffers from the same liability as the software has a delay, requires a mic (the internal PC mic works even worse in my opinion), and is severely limited in what it can actually do.

After doing a very annoying read-a-long calibration test that seemed more pass/fail (usually fail) as I kept having to repeat myself and, no, I do not have a speech impediment, quite the opposite. After that process I attempted to play around with the various commands, which seemed numerous at first, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that it wasn’t nearly enough and they were all very basic. If anything, there seemed to be more commands with controlling the software than my MacBook. There were not nearly enough commands for Safari to make it worth stepping away from my Mac as I had to use both my hands and the software to navigate. This isn’t streamlining the experience as I want the option to be able to step away, grab my tea, and still be able to issue commands without having to go back to my computer to hold the software’s hand.

My lacking experience with Dragon Dictate and Safari was consistent with other instances on my Mac only it got worse as the amount of commands became less and less. After an hour of messing around I came to the conclusion that this software, while on its way to becoming a quality product, is NOT AT ALL READY and should be pulled for further testing.

For the price, this software is not worth it at all. It’s a prototype in middle-development, NOT a finished product. I give it 2-stars because it is on its way and great for testing but that’s about it. Your average consumer will not like this, avoid until they beta-test a version that doesn’t get referred to as a beta product.