Dragon Dictation
Dragon dictation is another iPad application that I’ve come across. I actually install the application quite some time ago but I’ve never gotten around to actually use it. Today while sitting here for a few minutes I had some time to explore and to say I am impressed is an understatement. You can dictate to the app and with very little effort on my part, the app easily understood what I was saying and had no errors in the dictation. The app does not dictate directly to other apps, outside of a fairly short list, but cutting and pasting is allowed as well as saving as notes and such.
Once the information has been dictated into your iPad and quick copy/paste into any app in the system you are ready to go. They’re also convenient quick links to integrate with social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. This may actually make blogging and longer works feasible from the iPad. Lets face it, the touchpad keyboards is okay for shorter SMS style messages and comments on social media sites, but if you approach five hundred words it becomes cumbersome. This is especially true if you can actually type, even more so if you do so with any speed.
So, giving the app a full test, I have dictated most of this message to it and then copied/pasted it over to the web app while running the back in site. The only two places that I had issues with the text of the blog post were iPad and app. Oddly it got both right one time and missed them one time. The former was once incorrectly translated to ‘eye pad’ and the latter was similar transformed into ‘ad’.
All in all I am pretty impressed. I am not using a headset or anything, just the built-in microphone on the iPad. I think, based on my limited usage of both this and the built-in speech to text in Windows 7.0, this one does a better job of getting the words correct. Of course the speech to text in Windows 7.0 allows complete hands-free driving of the system and that is where it sometimes gets confused on me – when trying to do a command I did not necessarily ask it to do. Personally, I kind of like that, as I have no problem driving with a mouse or touchpad but admit to not liking the touchpad keyboards for long works or even to sometimes being a bit lazy with my fingers. Rating it I definitely give it two thumbs up, especially give the free cost of this app.
** – Image from Nuance website, logo for Dragon Dictation software.
