Voice recognition software for Mac OS X

An introduction to the main voice recognition packages for Mac

More about voice recognition

Although there is voice recognition software built into Mac OS, there are also packages for sale that offer excellent accuracy and even complete 'hands-free' use. Examples of voice recognition program for Mac are MacSpeech Dicate and IBM ViaVoice. This is a very powerful option for those who are not able to use a physical keyboard or mouse, or just want to speed up their text input.

The systems take time to ‘train’ to recognise the speaker, but with practice it is possible to input text at a rate in excess of the fastest typist.
Dictate and viavoice 
Fig 1

MacSpeech Dictate requires Intel-based Mac OS X 10.4 or higher. To find out more about MacSpeech Dictate visit the Apple Store.

IBM ViaVoice requires Mac OS X 10.1 upward.