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Accessibility features on a Mac
Thread poster: Andy S
Dylan J Hartmann
Dylan J Hartmann  Identity Verified
Australia
Member (2014)
Thai to English
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Moderator of this forum
Apple Dictate Dec 30, 2019

My experience with Apple Dictate was after a cycling accident that broke every bone in one arm.
In no time I realised that Dictate wasn't properly working with my funny accent, but this was immediately fixed when I changed it from US to AUS English!
Then, like magic, it worked wonderfully! It took me about a day or so to become accustomed and I was able to use it productively for the time it took for my arm to heal. I don't know how useful it'll be testing it for 5 minutes at a neigh
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My experience with Apple Dictate was after a cycling accident that broke every bone in one arm.
In no time I realised that Dictate wasn't properly working with my funny accent, but this was immediately fixed when I changed it from US to AUS English!
Then, like magic, it worked wonderfully! It took me about a day or so to become accustomed and I was able to use it productively for the time it took for my arm to heal. I don't know how useful it'll be testing it for 5 minutes at a neighbour's house because without a doubt it won't perform as you expect. It takes time to adapt to the dictate system, but with your previous experience, it might be quicker!
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Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:37
Member (2008)
Italian to English
fast talking Dec 31, 2019

One strange thing I've noticed about Apple Dictate: if I speak quickly it can type a whole sentence without making any mistakes. But if I hesitate or pause, it gets confused.

Having observed Apple Dictate in action over several years, I think it works by context, i.e. by associating words with one another in a flow. If you interrupt the flow, it is unable to make those associations and that's when it makes mistakes.



[Edited at 2019-12-31 08:04 GMT]


 
Dan Lucas
Dan Lucas  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:37
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Agree with Andrii Dec 31, 2019

Andrew Stucken wrote:
I am a big Dragon user on my PC, but just have to work out how to do this, unless I buy an iMac and try it out, but I do not want the hassle of returning it.

I too am a Windows user, and use Dragon every day, and I can understand the implied frustration with the accessibility utilities you already use. I am agnostic with regard to Apple: provided that people understand the compromises involved, they should use what they like.

However, in general I would be very cautious about moving from one OS to another in the hope of gains in productivity or stability. In fact, I'd have to be absolutely desperate to go ahead with it. In my experience, even upgrading from one device to another on the same OS can be fraught with difficulty. If you move to another OS you will have to re-learn a good deal of what you think you know about computers.

Furthermore, the interaction between different utilities (often highly specialised pieces of software that have a relatively small user base, and are thus less thoroughly tested than something like Microsoft Office), the operating system and other applications is simply too complex to permit a guarantee of compatibility. You could spend all that money, and all that time, only to encounter a similar but different issue on your new OS.

You should also bear in mind that Apple is a much smaller ecosystem with only a fraction of the number of users that Windows has, and if you were to exclude users in education (where Apple's market share is still fairly high) it would be lower still. So if you do run into an issue, there will usually be fewer options open to you.

In line with Andrii's comments, when I was looking for a voice recognition system a couple of years ago I did briefly consider Apple, but no review that I have read suggested that any of the dictation options on the Apple were as capable or sophisticated as Dragon Naturally Speaking. It may be that you don't need all that power or sophistication, but you'd want to be pretty certain that you don't need it before making the move. I agree with Dylan - you should try any system out for a period of time. Five minutes or even five hours would not be enough.

This isn't a question of my being critical of Apple. If you were an Apple user having a few issues with software but otherwise basically happy, I'd strongly advise you not to move to Windows in the hope of ironing out those few irritations. The switching costs are just too high.

I'm not saying you shouldn't go ahead, but if you're like most freelancers, your computer system is the platform on which your translation business is based. Are you absolutely sure you can't resolve the issue on your Windows system by spending a good deal less time and money?

Regards,
Dan


Tom in London
 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:37
Member (2008)
Italian to English
YEs Dec 31, 2019

I would have exactly the same problems if I ever decided to switch from the Mac to a PC. But many people use both systems and are very relaxed about switching from one to another: for example some friends of mine who run a small web design business (which requires their output to work equally well on both platforms). I have watched them in action switching effortlessly from the MacOS to Windows (using Parallels). I guess it's all a matter of experience.

[Edited at 2019-12-31 08:44 GMT]


Dan Lucas
 
Andy S
Andy S
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:37
German to English
TOPIC STARTER
Need to try Apple Dictate Dec 31, 2019

All very interesting.

I think it is true to say that it is a lot of money (around 2.5K UKP if you include the extra RAM, parallels and Windows) to risk and find that Apple Dictate plus the zoom feature do not marry up together.

Not sure how I will get o test it though. I am minded to stick an SSD in my old PC and maybe some more RAM, costing around 200 UKP, to keep it going until I do buy a new computer (which I still want to be a Mac).

I am confident I c
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All very interesting.

I think it is true to say that it is a lot of money (around 2.5K UKP if you include the extra RAM, parallels and Windows) to risk and find that Apple Dictate plus the zoom feature do not marry up together.

Not sure how I will get o test it though. I am minded to stick an SSD in my old PC and maybe some more RAM, costing around 200 UKP, to keep it going until I do buy a new computer (which I still want to be a Mac).

I am confident I could get used to the new OS as I have used Macs before at work and have an iPad and iPhone.
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Dan Lucas
 
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Accessibility features on a Mac






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