June 2016 – TRAINING YOUR DRAGON with SCOTT BAKER

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We are all grown-ups here, right?

Of course we are. The “platform war” thing has been done to death a million times with no clear victor. Some people love using a Mac, some people love using a Windows PC. That’s just how it is and how it always should be – after all, huge faceless corporations don’t care about any of us anyway, right? Why should we treat our choice of a computing platform as if it’s some kind of good or bad personality trait, anyway?

Things are a little different when it comes to using the best tool for the job, however. I’ve flipped and flopped between the Mac and Windows several times over the last 20 or so years. I’m old enough to remember when people hated Windows with a passion. I also remember when the Mac wasn’t so hot, either (I’m looking at you, OS 9). But that was a long time ago and both platforms now have excellent operating systems in the form of OS X (soon to be called macOS) and Windows 10.

But Dragon is a strange beast as, despite sharing the same brand name, the products are very different on the Mac and the PC. I highlight in some detail in “The Writer’s Guide to Training Your Dragon” how Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Windows is, in many ways, a far superior product to the product formerly known as Dragon Dictate (now simply called Dragon for Mac). I stand by that opinion still, despite currently dictating this blog post using Dragon for Mac 5.

I’m in the lucky position of being able to use both – if you have a Mac, after all, you can run the Windows version of the software in a virtual machine or via Boot Camp. If you have a PC, then you arguably already have the preferred version of the software. Really, the best option is to choose based on what computer you already own.

But Mac users do have a quandary and the last thing anyone should do is switch platforms based on one piece of software. After the last few years of being firmly entrenched in the PC camp (I tried to love you, Surface Pro, I really did), I am firmly a Mac user once again despite my reservations that Dragon is a compromised piece of software on the platform. But I simply prefer OS X and several pieces of software I use (mainly Final Cut Pro, Ulysses and the deep integration with their iOS devices) make it a better platform for me.

If you are in the market for a brand-new computer and, frankly, don’t mind whether you use a Mac or PC, then I would be inclined to steer you towards Windows if Dragon is going to be a major (if not the main) part of your workflow. If, on the other hand, you are set on owning a Mac, just know that Dragon for Mac will get the job done, despite the horror stories. For purely dictating into TextEdit, it works just fine and the recognition engine is exactly the same as the Windows version, so your accuracy shouldn’t suffer.

When it comes to tweaking and refining your profile over time, however, Dragon for Mac cannot compete and transcribing files, while convenient, is vastly superior in Dragon NaturallySpeaking as you can make corrections to the transcribed text once it has appeared on your screen. That, bizarrely, is something the Mac version simply cannot do and will result in a cap on your accuracy on the transcription side of things. You can always correct it later with the keyboard, of course, but that kind of defeats the purpose of speech recognition software that is supposed to improve over time, no?

Your other choice, of course, is to run Dragon NaturallySpeaking on your Mac using virtualisation software such as Parallels or VMware Fusion – both have modes which make it appear as if the program is running natively on your Mac desktop and Windows simply gets out of the way. This option, however, means slightly more expense – you will need a Mac capable of running Windows in a virtual machine (anything from the last three years will do, but 8 GB of RAM is probably a prerequisite and an SSD wouldn’t hurt either) and you will also have to buy a Windows license.

Neither option is right or wrong and both Mac or PC will get the job done, for the most part. But before you drop a lot of money on one or the other, think hard about both the platform you will be most comfortable with in the long run and whether you will be using Dragon purely to get words on a page or for more advanced dictation usage. If, for example, your mobility is impaired and you want to use Dragon to control your computer I can only truthfully recommend sticking with a PC and NaturallySpeaking.

There. I’ve said it. I, Scott Baker, hereby declare as a happy Mac user that the Windows fans have it best when it comes to dictation software. See? It’s not so hard to get along. After all, isn’t choice a wonderful thing?

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I love dictation. I love how quickly it enables me to write and, in turn, the time I save to do things other than working – like being with my family or bingeing on the latest series of “House of Cards”.

As wonderful as it is, though, I find it incredible that we are still tied to a desktop application to get the best results. Obviously, if you are dictating into your PC or Mac then Dragon has the ability to learn from its mistakes and build an increasingly accurate profile of your voice and writing style. The processing power required to do this (and to physically store the large file containing all your dictation data) is beyond the capacity of most mobile devices.

Until now.

A few weeks ago, I took delivery of a shiny new 12.9 inch iPad Pro. Once you get over the initial shock of a tablet that is literally bigger than your head, you are struck by the sheer power of this thing. The A9X processor Apple has put in this device (combined with 4 GB of RAM) is desktop class and, boy, can you feel it in use. Along with its recently released smaller version, this is a tablet that I have no doubt could comfortably run an iOS-optimised version of Dragon.

So why won’t Nuance make one?

Instead, they’ve given us Dragon Anywhere. On the surface, it’s great – super accurate, continuous dictation finally available on a mobile device. But just like the long neglected (but still perfectly usable) iOS Dragon Dictation app, all the recognition processing is done remotely. It’s the same as using Siri or Google Now – you speak, a server somewhere on the planet thinks about what you said and, a second or two later, the results are whizzed back to you. The big advantage of Dragon Anywhere is that unlike all of those examples, there’s no 30 or 60 second limit on your dictation – you can just keep talking, as you would in the desktop version.

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One big upside is you can run this on pretty much any mobile device that supports it – both iOS and Android. The downside? All of that power I talked about in a device like the new iPad Pro is going to waste. The sad reality is that desktop PC sales have been declining quarter on quarter for many, many years. While Microsoft certainly doesn’t need to worry about the state of Windows just yet, there’s no question that people are moving to Macs or even mobile devices to get things done.

I love the idea of one device that can just about do everything. I’m not a gamer or too heavily into video editing, so my mobile needs are simple – I want something lightweight with a great screen that is capable without needing liquid cooling. I have a Mac desktop (also running Windows under Parallels) for the heavy lifting back at my desk. I’ve owned several Microsoft Surface devices (including the latest Surface Pro 4) and every one of them has been riddled with hardware problems, software issues or both. As ideal a portable Dragon setup it seemed, I finally gave up in frustration on that avenue recently.

The iPad Pro would be an ideal Dragon device for me on the road – it’s easily powerful enough, has plenty of storage and the screen is gorgeous. But Dragon Anywhere doesn’t take advantage of it and I think the reason for that is simple – money.

Dragon Anywhere is expensive. Really expensive. It uses the subscription model (something I have a sneaky feeling Nuance may shift to in the future for the desktop product, as well) and costs an eye-watering $15 per month or $150 per year. For a mobile app that doesn’t even interact with the desktop product (despite what Nuance claim, the synchronisation is minimal), the pricing is absurd. And this ties in to the reason why Nuance will probably never make a desktop-rivalling mobile version of the program that doesn’t rely on an Internet connection – they can’t sell it for enough.

Mobile apps are cheap. Could you see Nuance developing and selling a version of Dragon for iOS and Android that cost, say, $10? Not a chance. Not even $20 or $30 would cut it, and that would be considered expensive in the average app store.

So $15 per month it is, then. Is it worth it? It depends on how desperately you want to use Dragon on the move, but I struggle to see the value. Dragon Anywhere needs a constant Internet connection to work and, disappointingly, is little more than a dictation notepad. You can’t simply talk directly into, say, your mail app or the mobile versions of Word or Pages. Everything you say is translated within Dragon Anywhere and must be copied and pasted from there – and, of course, if the app crashes, it will take your dictation with it.

It’s also accurate, but only to a point. There’s no profile being saved, so the only thing it remembers (and syncs, if you have DNS Professional or Dragon for Mac 5) is your custom vocabulary. There’s no training of your voice or writing style going on. None.

So, it seems, the best way to dictate on the move is still to use transcription. That means having the full version of Dragon installed on a Mac or PC somewhere, but until Nuance rethink their mobile strategy, it’s probably still your best way of writing while you’re away from your desk.