To say 2020 has been unpredictable is an understatement. One thing we all knew, however, was that Apple was planning to replace Intel chips in all Macs over the course of a two-year period. They announced this back in June and confidently claimed the first Apple Silicon machines would arrive before year end. Well, that day has come: new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini models have landed sporting the new M1 chip.
While this could represent a huge leap forward for the Mac platform, it’s significantly problematic for any Mac users of Dragon dictation software.
As we all know, Nuance discontinued Dragon for the Mac platform back in 2018. Most people have been getting by with using their old copy or had made the leap to running the Windows version via a Parallels virtual machine (VM) or similar. With these new chips, both of these options may have hit a brick wall.
That’s because Apple’s M1 chip is based on ARM architecture, similar to the processors you will find in your iPhone or iPad. This is hugely beneficial for Apple – they get to take all of their chip manufacturing in-house, not relying on Intel or anyone else for supply or making progressive leaps forward in speed or efficiency. For years, razor-thin Apple devices have been hampered by Intel’s hot, power-hungry chips. With M1 (and future chip designs), that all changes. Apple can now make strides in both speed and battery life.
There’s a catch, though. The new ARM chips are not compatible with the x86 instruction set found in Intel processors. That means they can’t run your old Mac software unless it is “emulated”, something Apple states their new Big Sur operating system can do via their Rosetta 2 conversion trickery. Most of the Mac programs you use on an Intel device will continue to work just fine, they say, on an M1 chip until newer, fully optimised versions arrive.
This almost certainly won’t be the case for Dragon, though. The last version, Dragon Professional Individual for Mac 6.0.8, is now over two years old and is only officially compatible with High Sierra (although plenty of people still have it working just fine on more recent versions of macOS). Whether this can be successfully emulated to run on the new Apple Silicon, however, is a lottery. Dragon needs to get its hooks into your operating system in order to function properly; if the conversion doesn’t work, there won’t be a fix coming. (UPDATE: see bottom of this post – 6.0.8 does not work on M1 Macs.)
More alarming, though, is the inability to run a Windows virtual machine via Parallels Desktop or similar. Both Windows and the PC version of Dragon are based on x86 chip architecture. There is no conceivable way that a Mac M1 chip can run an x86 Windows VM. Parallels have stated that they are working on a new version of the software for the M1, but that will only run ARM-based operating systems.
This leaves Mac users with two options:
- Stay on Intel. Either stick with the machine you have or purchase an existing Intel-based Mac. There should be support for a good while yet but be aware the value of your machine is likely to drop off a cliff in the next few years (once Apple has migrated all its Macs to their own chips).
- Buy a PC. You may not want to switch your computing platform of choice entirely, but a good option could be a separate PC simply for running Dragon. iCloud sync is available for Windows (as well as Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive), so synchronising between platforms shouldn’t be a problem.
There is a possibility that Dragon for Windows could return to the Mac via emulation. Back when Mac computers used PowerPC chips, a program called Virtual PC existed that allowed users to run Windows operating systems and programs on their non-Intel machines. The downside? Emulation is much, much slower than virtualisation. If the ability to run an x86 operating system returns via this route, be prepared for a horrendous performance hit (and probable incompatibility with external devices such as microphones). In other words, it’s a solution – but not much of one.
In short, what this means is the ability to run the Windows version of Dragon is over for Mac users on an Apple Silicon device. Things will continue as normal if you are on an Intel Mac, but be under no illusion – Apple is transitioning their entire Mac product line to their own chips, so even this solution is time-limited. With so many Intel Macs out there, it’s conceivable you won’t have to worry about this for many years – but if you are thinking of buying one of the new machines, be aware of what you are getting into.
Apple Silicon is the future of the Mac, but it could also be the end of Dragon on the platform completely.
UPDATE 20th Nov 2020: A user at the Dragon Riders group on Facebook has confirmed that Dragon 6.0.8 does not work on Apple Silicon, resulting in a Rosetta 2 error.
TRAINING YOUR DRAGON with SCOTT BAKER 
On my MacBook Pro M1 I loaded a beta version of Parrallels designed for an M1, and a developers version of Windows 10 (following instructions at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Qfk8hhA-c). Windows worked, and I could surf the internet. I then downloaded and installed Dragon Profession 15, but when I tried to open it I got a message “Failed to launch 64 bit server”, which I presume means that it won’t run, as you have explained above.
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You need to make sure you have downloaded the Insider Build of the very latest Windows on ARM – this will allow you to run 64-bit Intel apps. I have DPI 15 working in this manner just fine on an M1 MacBook Pro.
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I am now using Windows 10 Pro Insider Preview Build 21318.rs on my MacBook M1 using Parallels. I still get the message “Failed to launch 64 bit server” when I try to run DPI 15. When I was using Windows build 21292 DPI worked perfectly, but it stopped working when Windows updated. DPI didn’t work in earlier versions than 21292, with the same message.
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So it is possible to run DPI 15 on an M1 machine using Parallels? I’m currently running it using Parallels on a 2014 MacBook Pro, and would like to get a new M1 machine — but would only do so if I could continue to run Dragon via Parallels.
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Yes, it’s possible. It’s all beta/preview software for Parallels and Windows on ARM though. I wouldn’t personally recommend getting an M1 in order to do this as it could fail/break/no longer be available at any time. Incidentally, Dragon 15.61 only works with DragonPad for me on M1 – there is unusable lag dictating into any other program.
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Ah, got it. Thanks so much for the information, Scott. It’s been a real hassle trying to figure out what’s actually possible right now. Seems like I’ll have to wait a while for an M1 upgrade! Does this make you at all hopeful that there will eventually be a robust, stable solution for the M1 that replicates what currently exists for the Intel machines? Or do you think that’s a bridge too far?
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Right now, I think it’s unlikely. Apple is on a very separate path to the Intel/AMD/x86 world and it feels like there’s no going back. Any form of viable Windows compatibility went away with M1 – this was Apple’s choice to make and I think iOS compatibility is the more logical long-term strategy for them.
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FYI, aegis on the talonvoice slack chat has a fix for Dragon 6.0.8 on the M1
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Thanks Ryan. I looked for the fix by aegis on talon-voice but couldn’t see it. Would you mind posting what was said?
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I’ve chatted with aegis and it requires a Terminal hack. I wouldn’t feel comfortable making it public as it’s a little involved and could cause issues for some users. They have informed Apple’s Rosetta team of the issue, though – so fingers crossed.
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Is there an update on the fix?
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You would need to get in touch with aegis at the Talon Slack group. It’s not a publically available fix.
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Hi again! Does the announcement by Parallels of a new version (16.5) with “full native support” for M1 chips change the picture?
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Not really. The Windows on ARM OS is still just a developer time-limited beta. There’s no way to buy a licence and there may never be.
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Thanks for this very helpful article and for the useful additional comments. In reciprocation, I now at my viewpoint.
I think that we should ponder what specific functionalities we needed badly in Dragon Dictate, or Dragon Naturally Speaking (Windows in emulation). In my work, the most important one by far is that of making a decent text version of a voice file created in a variety of places (i.e. Dragon, Voice Memo, Omni Outliner, etc.).
So I plan to use a cheap Windows machine running the latest version of of Dragon Naturally Speaking ( which means I would be benefiting from Nuance’s future upgrades).
I can then use Teamviewer to move that file (MP3) from the Mac over to the Windows machine, have Dragon create the text version on the Windows machine, and then use Teamviewer to bring that text version back over to the Mac. This procedure is independent of the version of Macintosh being used, as long as it and the Windows machine will run the same version of Teamviewer.
As you experts here know, no doubt, we will still have Catalina and Siri from Apple, and Dragon Anywhere from Nuance, to get decent real-time speech to text conversion.
Yes, Dragon Anywhere beats the two Apple routes on accuracy; but it is for IOS and Android only. However, using the Siri-based (I think) dictate function in the Apple Notes program gives decent results. Catalina is struggling to catch up; bu it is a virtually brand new product; so if Apple devotes the need resources it can make Catalina highly competitive for accuracy, in due course.
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ARM has its own limitations and piling on cores returns less and less gains. Apple’s big beef with Intel was performance vs heat. MacBook’s needed a more efficient CPU that could out perform Intel chips and maintain better efficiency. But even the M silicon will see efficiency suffer if they keep adding more cores and increase clock speeds. It’s simply a matter of physics, which even Apple cannot solve so easily. The Mac Pro coming out in 2022 should give a perspective on the future of Apple silicon. But I suspect less and less gains in the future to entice Mac users to upgrade. Compatibility with Apple silicon with apps has had a effect, because some app developers have basically given up on supporting Mac OS altogether.
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Hi–I listened to your audio , and being a newbie I am a bit confused. I have a new iMac. Is it possible to use Dragon Naturally speaking on it? Or do I have to buy and install some type of Windows program? I have never used Windows so don’t understand about it.
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You seem to forget Microsoft has already ported a version of Windows to ARM so it might be possible to run that version under Apple Silicon with a little help from something like Parallels. Though Dragon would have to be rewritten to run under ARM. A shame and no surprise that the self-serving Microsoft owned Dragon company would abandon the Mac just as their blazing fast M1 & M2 chips are making mincemeat out of Intel PC’s.
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Just visited Nuance’s homepage via google search result ad top listing, which detected I was on MacBookAir and gave this page option, Dragon Anywhere: Dictation and text-to-speech app for iOS and Android, https://shop.nuance.com/store/nuanceus/en_US/Content/pbPage.dragon-anywhere.
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Dragon Anywhere does not work on a Mac. It’s for iPhone, iPad and Android only.
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