Not too long ago Nuance released its Dragon Dictation app for the iPad, iPhone and so on (iDevices, I prefer to refer to them as). I’ve now had an opportunity to experiment with this app.

The recognition accuracy is fairly good, considering the technology is based on voice recognition (and not speech recognition). Unlike Dragon for the PC, there is no opportunity to train, and neither can your accuracy improve as there is no means to correct.

There is no ability to modify the vocabulary, and the dictation style is based on general use, so this is not useful for non-general dictation (i.e. medical, legal and so on).

Dragon for the iPad records a maximum of 60 seconds before it will transcribe your dictation into its native window.  Using this product for dictating letters would become cumbersome.  If you are a professional requiring dictation away from your PC, you are still better off with a digital recorder (such as the Philips 9600 or Olympus DS-5000) coupled with the full version of Dragon Professional or Dragon Medical.

The recognition accuracy is entirely dependent on the user and their use of the available microphone. Proficient users of Dragon should be able to obtain near perfect accuracy. Newcomers to this technology will no doubt have mixed results. However, as there is no method for adding or modifying words in its vocabulary, the Dragon Dictation app is little more than a note taking tool.

Having said that, I was impressed with the accuracy I managed to achieve. But as the iPad, for instance, does not allow for multi-tasking, one must dictate into the Dragon Dictation app, and then copy and paste the resulting text into its ultimate destination. This is not a tool for chatting or for filling out forms and so on. But Dragon Dictation makes for an acceptable note taker.