Although neither voice-recognition program is at the point where users can safely toss the keyboard in the trash, you might be able to get away with stowing it under your desk for the better part of the day. MacSpeech released iListen 1.0 Monday at its Web site. Users who purchase the 1.0 version can upgrade for free. The setup process takes about 15 minutes, Rogers says. Once it's set up, iListen has a native vocabulary of about 30,000 words, and a background vocabulary of about 300,000 words.
Users can customize the software's vocabulary as needed.
While direct dictation garners the most attention for voice-recognition programs, it's the ability to launch and control applications that impresses MacSpeech's Rogers. But launching programs and toggling through open applications without fumbling for a keyboard or mouse can be a real time-saver, Rogers says. It makes my computer seem so much faster to me. Rogers walked us through an impressive demonstration of iListen, launching numerous applications with speech commands from the command mode. Every command spoken by a user is confirmed by a small feedback palette that floats off to the side of the open application.