What to do about Dragon for Mac being discontinued, and not being supported on Mojave?

alvca,

Sorry to hear of your disability. I will share a couple of possible solutions.

Solution 1: If you have enough space on your SSD, use Apple's disk utility to partition your drive into two parts.

The first partition will be for the current Mac OS and the second rename for your High Sierra / Dragon drive.

To reinstall the original OS, can use Apple's startup recovery procedure.. Mac startup key combinations -https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255 Direct it to your new partition and reinstall the fresh OS. After that it is back to Dragon and other necessary software. (I have assumed that there is no back copy of your laptop)

Once done the two drives will show up on your desktop as normal.

You will have to use the System Preferences > Startup Disk to boot between any new system and High Sierra.

This will give you the best of both worlds for sometime. I personally do this.

That being said, I highly recommend a backup drive or Apple's Time Capsule to have backups that can easily be restored when things go awry. A fast and inexpensive solution is purchase a Samsung T5 SSD and use it for Time Machine backup - it is less convenient than the Time Capsule, but just as effective

.

Solution 2: You also can purchase a usb drive on amazon to reinstall Mac OS 10.11 or 10.12 (simple method)

If you prefer just one drive, then just use either method and reinstall the OS of your choice on the whole drive.

To EVERYONE listening, Please contact Apple and suggest they take over the development of the Dragon for Mac software. Apple needs to take the lead and make it a viable product for Business, Professionals and the handicapped which they have so long touted as one of their hallmarks.

I hope this helps.

Best Wishes

Thanks for quoting me... RezGuy. Your point is also well taken regarding Apple not regarding consumer feedback.

I hope that is changing... the 2013 Mac Pro was resoundingly met with criticism by professionals. They now say they are listening.

So folks, here is the link to voice your desire for Apple to takeover Dragon or at least support Nuance in bringing it back.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

As to how long Dragon will work, who knows. Trying to make a new profile on Mojave for me was unstable. However, when I

brought my previous High Sierra Dragon profile into Mojave it became trouble free on my new iMac 2017. Given the tightening of Mac OS for privacy, sandboxing etc. the future could change anytime for Dragon. That is why I have partitioned the SSD and have High Sierra as my backup OS.

Frankly, with all the old software pieces that are 'migrated' during a system upgrade, I am afraid of anything other than a fresh install.

To those who are having trouble with Dragon, I highly recommend backup, reinitialize the drive and fresh install Mac OS to get Dragon working again. Experience has shown that when lots of apps have been installed over time, things go bad.

My Mac life changed for the better when another Mac user shared his uninstall insights.

They were...

1) Use an uninstaller like iTrash -there are several others.

2) Get EasyFind (it's free) and use it after the uninstaller to get the pieces that every uninstaller misses. This usually requires searching using the app name and the company. Be careful...

Caution... unique apps are easy to remove this way. But, if you have apps from the same company and want to return to a former blessed state... I suggest the backup route. Meaning either TimeMachine or some other software such as ChronoSync or Carbon Copy Cloner. Backup prior to new upgrades or installs is cheap insurance. Then you can return to your former state of bliss at any time.

Sorry for being wordy, just want help out.

alvca wrote:

Now there is no game in town, and I have to hope someone will step up to the plate and create the software that enables disabled people to use Macs.

Of course that may happen. In the meantime, you do have the option of downgrading from Mojave to the version of macOS that worked.

Or as you say, you can switch to Windows or run Windows in Boot Camp.

For now Dragon works fine in Mojave. It's as stable as it was in any OS. you might need to do some kind of a reset on your preferences but I've been using it ever since Mojave was released and it's quite stable.

Nuance say it has not been tested on Mojave but it working perfectly fine on my 2012 Mac mini.

https://macintoshhowto.com/osx/mojave-working-nicely.html

Hi Alvica,

You can continue to use dragon for Mac on Mojave because it work with all its warts on this platform. I always use Dragon Naturally Speaking with its far, superior functionality on Parallels with great success. It does freeze intermittently in coherence though.

Good luck.

Mike

Hi Wayne,

You can't directly, true. However, you can share a word file dictating in Parallels using DNS and opening the same file in Mac. You can split screen with Windows DNS one side and apple mail the other and copy and paste. Not ideal but for me DNS is so superior to the Mac dragon dictate it is the best compromise.

Mike

I was scared to upgrade to Mac OS Mojave because of all of the information I was reading saying it was not compatible. So I put it off until tonight.

First I made a clone of my High Sierra so that if I upgraded and it didn't work I could reboot into the cloned High Sierra hard drive and use Dragon for Mac from there. Then I took the leap and downloaded/installed Mojave and much to my surprise my Dragon for Mac software is working the same as it was before on High Sierra.

I also have a disability (quadriplegic) and cannot use my hands very well and my fingers not at all so I was really bummed out about the Nuance decision to abandon this program. I'm sorry you aren't able to get yours to work because I know how frustrating that must be.

Just in case it helps here is what I am running:

Mid 2015 5K iMac with not a lot of extra programs. I hope somehow this program will find a new company to take it over and get it working again and maybe even improve it.

I didn't know Dragon for Mac was no longer being supported but I have upgraded to Mojave and it's working fine. I dictate into a digital tape recorder then transcribe it into Word for Mac. Yes, I do agree APPLE SHOULD HAVE A DICTATION APP that is equal to or superior to Dragon. Why haven't they done it? Typing isn't the wave of the future, voice commands are, so why are they behind the curve on this one?

Is it because they see coding requires typing and that's what keeps them from providing it? Suppose coding become dependent on voice commands, will they then suddenly discover the utility of voice dictation?

Come on, Apple, get with it and see the market that is being created. Do you realize how many persons with disabilities there are or people who just want to speak, not type, their documents, books, projects?

Disgusted with Apple even though I just bought one of their new MacBook Air 2018 computers, which I really like.

I don't understand people saying that Mojave didn't break Dragon. For me, upgrading to Mojave instantly broke all keystroke-based commands in every context, including the DragonPad. Keystroke-based commands such as "Press the keys command-enter" no longer work anywhere. The DragonPad will no longer transfer text into most contexts when I click the "Transfer" button. The "New Paragraph" command frequently doesn't work for me. I have had to switch to Dragon under Parallels to get anything done.

I agree that Apple should bring their built-in dictation solution up to scratch. It's a very nice system, well integrated with the operating system in a way that Dragon never was. However, for me, it minimally needs the ability to make corrections, add custom vocabulary, and add complicated custom commands. I hope Apple understands that this is not a luxury for disabled users.

I think it is important for Apple to work with developers to promote the MacOS ecosystem.

Apple could just buy Nuance with spare change it found between the cushions on the couch (metaphorically speaking of course)

You do know that macOS supports speech recognition? Throwing the blame game as you have will not bring many to your support. No one has forced you to upgrade to Mojave, but then Dragon works fine with Mojave. I use it quite a bit.

If you are disabled perhaps you will need to consider a Windows machine as a replacement for your iMac in order to use Dragon for the PC. Nuance has always supported their product. I have had the product ever since it was originally developed before it was sold to Nuance. Dragon is not supporting it because of a simple reason. There isn't much of a market for the Mac product to generate the profits needed support further development. They are making a business decision. You are complaining because you don't like how that decision affects you.

Unfortunately Dragon dictate is the standard in health care and other industries. It is still better than apple's own product. Not only is Dragon more accurate but it stores data locally. Siri (and the google equivalent) use servers in the USA which are not compliant with health industry standards for privacy and are subject to US law. Governments don't wish for confidential information of their citizens (such as health information) to be on servers outside of their country (I live in Australia) and which are not accredited for health information and subject to a foreign government's laws. Unfortunately, for a number of professionals this may be enough impetus to switch to Windows at the next upgrade of laptop Note: Dragon Anywhere stores data on foreign servers too (i.e the USA) and Nuance make a big point to warn people of this when marketing in non US countries.

You do know that macOS supports speech recognition?

Nice job. Falsify a previous post, don't bother to read the others, follow with a snappy, snarky response -- stating the obvious and contributing nothing. Have a nice troll day under your bridge at Nuance.

I've been an APPLE person for years. Like many people with phone, iPad and iMac and I find them superb.

It's true the inbuilt dictation in Apple is inferior to Dragon for Mac.

It would be a real strength if Apple could upgrade its inbuilt system so that all of us, including those with significant disabilities, could use voice recognition easily and completely.

Apple, please listen, your customers need your help and you can do it. Do it for the New Year.