Breaking Windows

For a while, Fletcher was using iListen to convert his taped interviews and story notes into text files, but eventually gave up using the program. In addition to the hours it took to enter the text into iListen, he spent hours more in iListen correcting all of the mistakes the software made. "In my business, deadlines are the most important thing, and something that slows me down has to go," he says.

Expanded Access
MacSpeech Dictate is also expanding Mac’s accessibility options for the disabled, something that had also been very limited. Alva Access Group, for example, had provided a Mac version of its OutSpoken screen-reading product for several years, but stopped making the product when Mac’s OSX came out.

In its place, Apple developed its own screen reader, called VoiceOver, which comes built into OS X. VoiceOver enables users to navigate their computers, create and edit text documents, send and receive email, browse the Web, and even play chess. It comes with 20 voice options.

Springer also expects Dictate will expand Mac’s user base among the disabled. "A lot of people who dictate to their computers out of necessity left Macs for PCs. It will be interesting to see how many go back," she says.

Taylor says the process has already begun. "We’re already starting to see people come back to Macs. They’re looking at [Dictate] with the same recognition engine from Nuance; they know [Dragon NaturallySpeaking] works, and now they’re ready to come back," he explains. "Mac users use Macs because they like the applications environment and the way it works. If they had any real interest in Windows, they would have bought a PC for a lot less money."

But not every Mac user will be able to use Dictate. The MacSpeech software requires the latest versions of Mac hardware and software, and only runs with Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher and the latest Mac computers with Intel processors. "You can only run this new software on the newest machines," Taylor says. "We jettisoned the old software that had been around for years to take advantage of only things that are brand new."

Not for Everyone
But while the Mac’s popularity is gaining (see the sidebar), not everyone is joining the craze. Eric Rose, electronic health records product manager at McKesson Provider Technologies, simply says that the Mac "is not part of our development plans."

Among the clients for his company’s medical dictation and transcription products, "there is no demand for [Mac software]," he says. "PCs are cheaper, more widely available, and the IT expertise is more easily available for the Windows environment."

To make the company’s electronic health records software available for the Mac "would take up valuable R&D resources, and we just don’t see a compelling reason to do that," he adds.

Still, most other dictation technology vendors have taken a wait-and-see approach to the Mac.

Apptec, maker of the DigiTel and DigiScribe dictation and transcription technologies, hasn’t tested its products on the Mac platform, but its president, Andy Braverman, says there is no reason to believe that Mac owners couldn’t use them. The technology is housed on a device (called a Pod) that connects to a computer, networked server, or Web FTP site through the USB port, which is common to both the Mac and PC. Though it’s listed as supporting the Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Vista operating systems, "you shouldn’t have issues with it on a Mac," Braverman says. "All recordings are done through the Pod, so it should be hardware-independent, plug-and-play technology."

Even Phillips Speech Processing, the company that lost out when MacSpeech went with Nuance for its Dictate product, has left the door open for Mac-ready products. "We don’t have anything right now, but I’ve heard that there are plans in that area," a sales leader at the company’s Atlanta office said.

For MacSpeech, the exact opposite is true. "We are not in the Windows market. We will never get into it," Taylor says.

Going Mobile
Instead of the Mac, many dictation software vendors are turning their immediate attention to the mobile space, particularly as issues of accuracy related to mobile devices’ limited memory, processing power, and sharing of information between devices and networks disappear. Greater mobile dictation offerings will further unshackle users from their PCs.

Though still largely limited to dictating email and text messages—as is the case with Nuance’s VoiceControl application that is now preloaded on a number of mobile devices—and voicemail-to-text offerings like those from SpinVox, SimulScribe, and CallWave, many have high hopes that mobile dictation software will soon accommodate much larger files.