I've been reading about this for a while and was hoping the price would be reasonable. The desktop version is about $100, so I was hoping that the iPhone version would be $10 or less. Much to my surprise, it was just released, and it's FREE: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dragon-dictation/id341446764?mt=8 It doesn't state how long it will be free, so you should probably get it quickly ... just in case.
Wow, thank you for this thread. Just downloaded it and used it a few times. App works flawlessly, just as described. Great app. Just wish i can say a contacts name and have it sms/email to them. That way i can finally text and drive with no concerns.
I've read a few places that the EULA states that all your contacts will be uploaded to their servers. I'm not going to use it until I hear an explanation of what's done with that information.
I'm not basing this on anything but a hunch, but my guess is that it just scans and uploads the names to assist with voice recognition. All voice recognition software I've seen scans your contacts' names so that when you say "Dear John" (but obviously with more complicated names) it will get the transcription correct. Hopefully they're not pulling in phone numbers and email addresses, or I'm probably going to regret my decision to install this thing.
Dragon must want phone numbers, because the app won't install on my 3G Touch even though the headphones have a built-in mic. There's no way it's really "incompatible" -- I'm sure the app would work just fine if there wasn't an artificial restriction on it.
I agree that it is a little disconcerting to have contacts uploaded, so I looked at their site and found this explanation - it made me feel a bit better about it: "Some people have expressed concern about what the new Dragon Dictation for the iPhone application does with your contact information. As you may have experienced already, Dragon Dictation for the iPhone goes through your contact list on your iPhone and uploads the names to our server. We do this for a pretty simple reason: we found that people are often dictating names from their address book and expect the names to be recognized. We take this information and create an anonymous user profile for your device that understands what names are likely to dictate into a document. It's important to note that we only upload the names, not the e-mail addresses, phone numbers or any other personally identifying information from your contacts. Even though there is no personally identifying information, we still treat all of this information with the highest privacy standards. All of our servers are located in the United States and meet the most stringent privacy and security standards. We conform to these high standards because we use the same data centers for other areas of our business where we are required to store personal information."
I did go to their website and read all their legal information along with privacy statements and felt pretty good about using their app. So with that said .... I do like the app but probably not for the reasons most would like a dictation app. I like for the humor value. It can come up with some pretty funny interpretations like ...... "Hello my dog is fat. The sky is green the grass is yellow and news of my life is all I'll talk to you about today".
Here's the entire blog post from Dragon about what it's doing with your contact names: http://community.nuance.com/blogs/dragon/archive/2009/12/08/what-dragon-dictation-for-the-iphone-does-and-doesn-t-do-with-your-contacts.aspx
If you are skeptical downloaded anyway now that it's free. it is a great app that simplifies things very much and you can install it once the contact thing gets taken care of.
