This week has, again, been a fairly quiet one in terms of app news but I’m sure we’ll have plenty to report on come next Wednesday (we may even see some Mac-related gear being announced) after Apple’s announcement! We will of course bring you a full roundup of all the new products just after the announcement but in the meantime, feel free to sink your teeth into this week’s news findings.
Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac announced with improved accuracy and audio file transcription
Not wanting to be outdone by the built-in dictation feature in Mountain Lion, the developers of Dragon Dictate for Mac, Nuance have announced the third version of their popular dictation software, which is due to be released on September 19. Dictate 3 comes with improved accuracy and speed and allows users to dictate long passages of text without an internet connection and you can also transcribe audio files as well.
According to the developers, Dictate 3 “inherits the accuracy boost” as seen in Dictate 12 for Windows and Mac users can expect to see a 15% boost in accuracy over the previous version 2.5. The new version does come at a fair whack though: for new users, Dictate 3 can be pre-ordered from the company’s online store for $199.99 (either as a boxed shipment or electronic download). The digital download is available from September 13, whereas the physical product begins shipping on September 24.
RIP, Twitter for Mac
It seems like development on Twitter’s official Mac client has ground to an inevitable halt, according to a tweet by TechCrunch columnist MG Siegler. The application will not be killed off however development will be shelved inevitably (meaning no new features will be released for it), presumably whilst the company concentrates on further features for TweetDeck, which it bought out in May of last year.
Word is that Twitter made the call today: Twitter for Mac is done. They won’t kill it outright, but no further updates. Goodbye, old friend.
— MG Siegler (@parislemon) September 6, 2012
The announcement was inevitable, to say the least. Twitter for Mac received its last update in June of last year and has not been updated following the release of the retina MacBook Pro (according to one source, a retina version was developed then mothballed) or Mountain Lion (however standard Twitter notifications can still be had through the built-in Twitter support in Mountain Lion).
We have heard nothing official from Twitter regarding this, however it seems that with the lack of new features, this will drive many former Twitter for Mac users to other alternatives, such as TweetDeck and Tweetbot.
Apple working on a Pandora-like internet radio service
One of the hottest Apple rumours this week (which has been confirmed by many sources) is that Apple is working on a internet radio streaming service, much like Pandora in the United States or We7 in the United Kingdom, which will hopefully help take a mighty bite out of the on-demand music streaming market, which has grown big in the last few years. Although nothing official has been announced as of yet, Apple has reportedly favoured Pandora‘s radio option, whereby users are fed songs based on their own suggestions and interests, rather than Spotify‘s model of users selecting tracks based on their own searches.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple has been negotiating deals with major record labels in the United States however the launch could be months away (we may see an announcement about it on Wednesday). The company will also face hurdles if it wants to use the name “iRadio”, as this is already in use by several radio stations and an iPhone app.
Heard Anything Else?
If you’ve heard anything else exciting that’s happened this week then go ahead and post a link to it in the Comments section below for the benefit of our other readers!