Dragon Dictate 4 and the Insanity of Nuance
Nuance just released the latest version of Dragon Dictate for Mac and it’s simultaneously great and terrible.
The Great
The speech recognition engine is noticeably better. With just a basic headphone mic at my desk, the error rate is miniscule. The dictation option is perfect for me. I record a good number of voice memos and Dragon Dictate 4 can use those for both training and transcription (as long as the bit rate is at least 16 kHz).
The Terrible
Nuance is what I would call a scummy internet sales company. They are purposefully deceptive in their marketing tactics and overly aggressive in acquiring user data.
I’m no stranger to product up-sell and Nuance has always pushed more expensive versions of their packaged software that include headsets and other peripherals. For the most part, this doesn’t bother me. However, Nuance specifically mentioned a $99 version of Dragon Dictate for Mac on their company Twitter account without ever providing a link.
Searching their product site will lead you to mentions of a $149 upgrade version of the application but that’s about it. Even then, when I attempted to buy the software, there was no store link to do so. The only option was to finally click on the ever present floating “Chat with me” bobble head.
The chat was excruciating. Every direct question resulted in the tiniest bit of actual information along with a request to call me on the phone. After 10 minutes, the chat human/bot finally agreed to help me place an order for the $149 upgrade. Or at least I thought it did.
As I navigated the circus of questions designed to gather more information about me, I realized where this was going. They wanted me to provide my contact information and credit card in the chat window which Little Snitch told me was not secured in any way. The transcript and conclusion is below.
So I resolved to not purchase this update and spite myself. But then @ct_hermit was kind enough to share his/her research into the upgrade pricing.1 He (or she) discovered this link that immediately adds a $99 purchase of Dragon Dictate 4 to your Nuance shopping cart. It also adds some password manager that I’d never trust, but who cares. Dragon Dictate 4 for half of the regular price.
Conclusion
There it is. Dragon Dicate 4 for Mac is great but it’s sold by a scummy internet company. If you can at all avoid interacting with Nuance to make your purchase, then that’s the preferred way to buy it. If you still must interact with the Nuance website, for the love all humanity, do not “Chat Now.”
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You probably want to follow someone clever and determined enough to find that link the forums. ↩︎