My typing skills are bad. As I get older, my arthritis is hampering further. I am interested in purchasing some kind of voice to print dictation software. I read about an option that Apple has.If I understand correctly, every communication you dictate goes to a headquarters somewhere where your voice is transcribed to words and sent back instantaneously.Seems risky to me,allowing apple or any other institution to be privy to your writings, letters, stories, private records. Any suggestion for an Apple friendly dictation software that would be good for writing, whether for letters, emails ,short stories or Sigforum contributions? Desire something simple for the computer challenged.
Posts: 1623 | Location: Texas Hill Country | Registered: April 07, 2006
In MacOS Sierra you can actually download a file that supports offline dictation. Read the instructions at the link on how to turn on the enhanced dictation (offline). Document also links to dictation instructions page.
When you use Dictation, you can choose to have either your Mac or Apple’s servers perform the speech recognition for you. If you use Enhanced Dictation, your Mac will convert what you say into text without sending your dictated speech to Apple.
If you use server-based Dictation, the things you dictate will be recorded and sent to Apple to convert what you say into text and your computer will also send Apple other information, such as your name and nickname; and the names, nicknames, and relationship with you (for example, “my dad”) of your address book contacts (collectively, your “User Data”). All of this data is used to help the dictation feature understand you better and recognize what you say. It is not linked to other data that Apple may have from your use of other Apple services.
You can choose to turn off or change your preferences for Dictation at any time by going to the Dictation tab in the Keyboard preference pane found within System Preferences. If you turn off both Siri and Dictation, or switch from using server-based Dictation to Enhanced Dictation, Apple will delete your User Data, as well as your recent voice input data, from Apple’s servers. Older voice input data that has been disassociated from you may be retained for a period of time to generally improve Dictation, Siri and dictation functionality in Apple products and services. This voice input data may include audio files and transcripts of what you said and related diagnostic data, such as hardware and operating system specifications and performance statistics.
You can restrict access to the Dictation feature on your computer in the Parental Controls pane of System Preferences.
“Agnostic, gun owning, conservative, college educated hillbilly”
Posts: 4139 | Location: Middle Finger of WV | Registered: March 29, 2010
I have used voice activated software before, although not from Apple. It is far from perfect, and takes time to learn your voice and speech pattern. Be patient.
Posts: 17644 | Location: Stuck at home | Registered: January 02, 2015
Originally posted by maxdog: I have an old mac.osx, ver 10.6.8 Imac 8,1. I did try something available for emails on my ipad. Pretty inaccurate.
The Enhanced Dictation option became available with OS X Mavericks.
Your iMac 8,1 is also considered an Early 2008 iMac. Looking at Apple's support sites for OS X, your machine is supported by OS X Mavericks (10.9), Yosemite (10.10), & El Capitain (10.11) (Sierra doesn't support your iMac).
Originally posted by maxdog: Mr. Bill 345, i did updrade my mac once or twice by downloading updated software bringing it to its present form. Does that make a difference?
The Enhanced Dictation (offline) option first became available with OS X Mavericks (10.9), which was released in 2013. That would be the minimum base OS X system you will need.
You can find out which system you are running by going to the Apple Menu (upper left) and selecting "About This Mac".
According to what you posted earlier you are running Snow Leopard (10.6) and you can upgrade to El Capitan.
