This means the learning curve inherent to all speech-to-text tools is marginally less difficult with Voice Control, particularly if you’ve used Dictation or Siri before, as they’re already familiar with your speech patterns. That’s because they use the same speech-recognition algorithms.

Once you activate it, you may notice that it works similarly to the Dictation and Siri functions on your phone. It’s available for free in macOS, iOS, and iPadOS you can activate it by going to Settings > Accessibility on your preferred device. Because Voice Control is deeply integrated into the Apple ecosystem, it’s more accessible than many of the other tools we tested. Although Dragon produced the fastest transcriptions of any tool we tested, this wasn’t an unqualified positive: Half of our panelists said that they preferred slower real-time transcriptions to Dragon’s sentence-by-sentence transcription method because they found its longer pauses between sentences’ appearance on their screen to be distracting.Īpple Voice Control is easy to use, outperforms major competitors from Google, Microsoft, and Nuance, and offers dozens of command prompts for a smoother experience, an especially helpful feature for people with limited hand dexterity. It also struggled to eliminate all background noise, though you can mitigate such problems by using an external microphone or headset. Like our Apple pick, Dragon had trouble with various American dialects and international accents it performed better for those testers with “neutral” American accents. Our panelist with language-processing disabilities said Dragon was one of the most accurate dictation options they tried, and the robust command features made it possible for them to quickly navigate their machine. Like its predecessor, Professional v16 involves a learning curve at first, but the Dragon tutorial does a great job of getting you started. (If you need a free PC option, consider Windows Voice Recognition, but know it has significant flaws.) It offers added functionality for those working in finance, healthcare, and human services-and is probably overkill for most people. Professional v16 replaces our previous Windows PC pick, the now-discontinued Nuance Dragon Home 15. Apple’s tool may also lag slightly if you’re running multiple processor-intensive programs at once, which our panelists said slowed their productivity.Īt $700, Nuance Dragon Professional v16 is the most expensive speech-recognition tool we’ve found, but it’s the best option for people who own Windows PCs. Although such accuracy issues are expected for speech-recognition modeling that has historically relied on homogenous data sources, other tools (specifically, Nuance Dragon Professional v16, which is available only for Windows) performed slightly better in this regard. Among our panel of testers, those with limited hand dexterity loved Voice Control’s assistive-technology features, which made it easy to navigate the OS and edit messages hands-free.īut while the experience that Voice Control provides was the best we found for Apple devices, it often misunderstood words or entire phrases spoken by testers with regional or other American accents or speech impediments such as stutters.

Competing tools from Google and Microsoft averaged 15 points lower than Apple’s software in our accuracy tests. In our testing, it produced accurate transcriptions most of the time, especially for speakers with standard American accents. Still, for those able to work within the technology’s constraints, our picks are the best options available for many people who need assistance using a word-processing tool.Īpple’s Voice Control comes installed with macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, so it’s free to anyone who owns an Apple device. These apps have difficult learning curves, and the inherent bias that humans program into them means that their accuracy can vary, especially for people with various accents, sociolects and dialects like African American Vernacular English, or speech impediments. Firing off a quick text or typing a memo can be difficult-or even totally infeasible-if you have limited hand dexterity or chronic pain, but this kind of software can make such tasks a relative breeze.Īfter considering 18 options, we’ve found that Apple Voice Control and Nuance Dragon Professional v16 are more accurate, efficient, and usable than any other dictation tools we’ve tested.īut the technology behind dictation software (also called speech-to-text or voice-recognition software) has some faults. This flexibility is great if you simply need a break from your keyboard, but it’s especially important for people with language-processing disorders or physical disabilities. Dictation software makes it easy to navigate your computer and communicate without typing a single phrase.

Gboard vs apple keyboard