OS X Mavericks Unleashed: Enhanced Dictation, Now Available Offline
On iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad, voice recognition and dictation are front and center. Siri has a lot to do with that, but so does the iOS keyboard. Because most use the software keyboard on their iOS device, it’s easy to come across the microphone icon that starts the dictation feature — it’s right next to the space bar.
On Macs, however, it’s not as easy to stumble onto this feature. There’s no microphone key on those wireless Bluetooth keyboards we’re pecking away on. Some users might not even know dictation exists in OS X, period, but it’s been there since Mountain Lion — hidden behind a double-press of the Fn key or in the “Edit” menu.
With the Mavericks update released on Tuesday, Apple stepped up its game in the dictation department with a feature its calling “Enhanced Dictation.” Downloading Apple’s voice recognition engine will allow you to use dictation without an Internet connection — something iOS devices can’t do.
Enhanced Dictation also works to display text as you speak. If you’ve ever used Chrome or Android’s voice recognition feature, you know how this works. Instead of waiting until you’re done speaking to process your speech, Enhanced Dictation can work on it while you’re in the middle of speaking, potentially saving you a lot of time if the dictation feature makes some mistakes or doesn’t catch what you’re saying. It’s much better to get that bad news before you reach the end of your long-winded dictation, not after you’ve spoken for a while.
To activate Enhanced Dictation, you can press the fn key twice. A pop-up will ask you if you want to turn on Enhanced Dictation. If you do so, the voice recognition system will be downloaded to your Mac and you’ll have a dictation feature that is worlds better than the ones available on both Mountain Lion and iOS.
You can also turn Enhanced Dictation on by opening System Preferences > Dictation & Speech and checking the “Use Enhanced Dictation” box in the Dictation section. Note that the download is about 785 megabytes, so if storage space is precious, you might have to decide if the feature is worth it or not.
If you give it a try, let us know what you think.