ViaVoice for Macintosh OSX 3.0

by IBM

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00005NZXO
• Item model number: 29P4249
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 10, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 1.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,019 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

ViaVoice for Macintosh OS X Edition is a fully integrated voice recognition application for the Mac OS X platform. Built on IBM's series of continuous speech recognition developments for the Macintosh and designed to integrate with the new Mac OS X, users can dictate naturally into most text applications, easily launch and surf the Web, and navigate Apple's new Mac OS X--all by using their voice.

ViaVoice for Mac OS X is designed to take advantage of Mac OS X's Aqua interface. ViaVoice for Mac OS X sustains the Aqua look and feel throughout, including the new Command Center, redesigned Voice Center, SpeakPad, and preferences control. This latest version offers faster enrollment, allowing users to more quickly train the system to recognize their speech. ViaVoice's Outloud Text-to-Speech technology in U.S. and U.K. English allows users to listen to e-mail and other text documents that the computer reads out loud. An expandable, user-customizable, command-and-control feature allows you to speech-enable common tasks. ViaVoice for Mac OS X even features specialized vocabularies for computers, business and finance, "chatter's" jargon, and cuisine.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Really, really, good but not perfect., February 7, 2002

By 

Todd Clements (Seal Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: ViaVoice for Macintosh OSX 3.0 (CD-ROM)

I've only had ViaVoice for about one week now, but I have a pretty good impression of it. At first, what I was using it, I thought that it wasn't doing very well. It was making a large number of mistakes, and I was spending a lot of time correcting them. However, IBM seems to have done a good job, since I find that I'm correcting the program less, even after just one week. I probably use it for about one hour a day. The interface is actually very good, and mostly shows that they did try to write a Mac program. What finally convinced me that this program was great, is a test that I did earlier tonight. I read several paragraphs, and then figured out just how fast I was dictating to the software. It turns out, that I've been dictating at 150 words per minute.

However, there are a couple things wrong with the program. At least a couple times a day when using it, SpeakPad just stops responding. And I have to save my work, and restart the program. Not deadly by any means, but rather annoying. I also find that the in line correction that ViaVoice uses can often screw up. Sometimes when I'm correcting it will start inserting text randomly or cutting out text randomly and I can't figure out a pattern, and it's obviously a bug. However, for the most part it works. I have a repetitive stress injury in my wrists, and even though I'm spending time correcting, I still think that I'm probably getting at least 70 words per minute, which is about how fast I can type. The speed of ViaVoice is not an issue, at least on my Cube. It's plenty fast enough to keep up with my dictation.

And just for your information, I dictated this review using ViaVoice, and there were six mistakes (that I noticed). =)

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Frustrating - just doesn't work, March 8, 2002

By 

Terry Pundiak (Palmer Township, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: ViaVoice for Macintosh OSX 3.0 (CD-ROM)

Well, maybe I am totally wrong but I just have had it trying to use this product... I don't know what is wrong... the OS X or the ViaVoice, but I have had it. The support is only during the day time hours... great tostay on the line for a large segment of your day waiting to speak to someone... calling some long distance number... so use email ... last email he wanted to know how many "Favorates" I had in Internet Explorer... This product works well for about 5 to 10 minutes ... then you start to talk to the wall... nothing works... bombs sometimes, abberrant behavior other times... accuracy is not too great... bought the Medical Vocabulary and it works well a while then God knows what happens... it goes into some funky state ... I can't get it to work.... It is just as bad as ViaVoice Millenian edition and just as slow... helps.....if.... you......talk.....like..... this.........ViaVoice Beta Version all over again -

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Viavoice not so good, November 12, 2002

By 

Nice Lawn (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ViaVoice for Macintosh OSX 3.0 (CD-ROM)

I tried ViaVoice on Mac OS X. I was disappointed that it turned out to be so unstable with such poor recognition. It's a pity because it is a really nice looking program.

I ended up buying iListen, that's much much better, and a little easier to use. I guess I expected something from IBM to be better than something from a small mac only company, MacSpeech - I was wrong.