Nuance Increasing iOS Tie-Ins With New 'Dragon Remote Microphone'

With rumors of deep integration of Nuance's voice recognition technology in iOS 5 and evidence that such tools are hidden but included in current developer builds, there has been considerable interest in determining the extent to which the two companies are working together. Nuance technology has also been showing up in OS X Lion in the form of new text-to-speech voices and has been rumored to be being used in Apple's new North Carolina data center.

Nuance is certainly not new to the iOS platform, having released the high-profile Dragon Dictation and Dragon Search for the iPhone in late 2009. But a new, albeit simple, application called Dragon Remote Microphone released by Nuance today demonstrates how the company is seeking to link up iOS users with the company's flagship Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition software as part of a new version 11.5 release. The new app serves as a wireless microphone for the voice recognition software via Wi-Fi, allowing users to use their iOS device instead of the microphone included with the software for input.

In conjunction with the launch of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5, Nuance introduced the Dragon Remote Mic App, a free application on the Apple iOS app store which makes it possible to use an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad as a wireless microphone for Dragon via a Wi-Fi network connection. Many customers have requested to use their smartphones and other mobile devices with Dragon to have more flexibility with how and where they dictate with Dragon. The new Dragon Remote Mic App takes advantage of the nearly 200 million iOS devices in use today, and transforms the device into a wireless microphone that easily captures dictation and controls applications on your PC.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking is Windows-only voice recognition software available in a variety of packages ranging from $99.99 for the basic home package up to $799.99 for the high-end legal package. The company's Mac offerings come in the form of several MacSpeech products, a line the company acquired in early 2010. The new remote microsphone app does not, however, appear to be compatible with MacSpeech products at this time.