OS X Mountain Lion Adding Offline Safari Reading List Mode and Dictation to Mac

Dictation would be really useful, hopefully it's not only for 2012 Macs.
It would be cool if you could use your iPhone/iPad to dictate to your Mac.

Keyboard shortcut? Can't I just say "Computer"?

Cmd-Cmd doesn't seem like the best shortcut to use..

Ciclismo said:

Keyboard shortcut? Can't I just say "Computer".

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That will be more accurate, like Siri you need to tap it before you speak.

Ciclismo said:

Keyboard shortcut? Can't I just say "Computer".

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"Hey, I just got this new computer, its really cool and you can talk to it. So did you hear about that new guy that..."

I'm sure a computer just waiting to hear something specific will be great! And those laptops will have great battery life! [/sarcasm]

Mountain Lion seems to have some nifty features, but I have to admit: I miss that excited feeling I used to get when new OS X versions came out (e.g. Tiger, Leopard). Although more expensive, they were stuffed with new user-facing features. The past few years of OS X have not been quite as exciting as iOS...

I'll hold out til WWDC to see if there's something cool and unexpected!

Xscapes said:

That will be more accurate, like Siri you need to tap it before you speak.

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OSX's current voice recognition gives you the choice.

Sky Blue said:

Dictation would be really useful, hopefully it's not only for 2012 Macs.
It would be cool if you could use your iPhone/iPad to dictate to your Mac.

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You sort of can: just dictate in notes on the iPad and it will sync through the cloud

Anyway, yes would be cool to have finally good working speech recognition build into the mac. Years ago I tried the speech rec that was already than build into the mac, but it was really bad even for simple command & control

MacRumors said:

No other evidence of dictation or other Siri-like features has yet been discovered in OS X Mountain Lion, but Apple continues to work on the next-generation operating system and will undoubtedly issue an extensive preview of it at next month's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

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What exactly will they preview, notes, reminders, twitter and growl? Or bug and ui fixes for lion?

I was really hoping that this would come to mountain lion. I really enjoy using it a lot more than I thought I would on my iPhone and iPad.

You guys are more worried about which keys to press to activate Siri?

If true, this will be interesting. Folks typically don't sit 6 inches from their macs. Hope there aren't any limitations. The ability to record voice "macros" that do certain tasks would be nice.

Sky Blue said:

Dictation would be really useful, hopefully it's not only for 2012 Macs.
It would be cool if you could use your iPhone/iPad to dictate to your Mac.

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I don't think apple will keep dictation exclusive to 2012 macs, though, it's entirely possible. I'd think they would prefer to have more mountain lion sales than the few Mac sales they would gain from keeping dictation exclusive.

blow45 said:

What exactly will they preview, notes, reminders, twitter and growl? Or bug and ui fixes for lion?

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Hi-DPI support. Major third parties on the MAS. iCloud galleries. Hardware. Maps.

I hope the dictation is better than what MS provides in Win7

The screenshot says Moutation Lion?

Xscapes said:

That will be more accurate, like Siri you need to tap it before you speak.

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If Siri really were as capable of understanding speech as Apple advertises it, it would understand the difference between when it's being talked about and when it's being talked to.

I suspect the reason Siri requires a touch to activate it is so that it isn't wasting battery all the time interpreting the sounds it hears trying to determine whether you're addressing it or not.

Also, Apple needs to add a cmd-cmd sort of shortcut for diction in iOS... or at the very least the diction sound should respect the mute switch. Surely I can't be the only one who, in a dead silent room, was texting from their muted iPhone when they accidentally hit the diction key and had it announce to everyone that I have an iPhone 4S... this probably happens 2-3 times a week.

acslater017 said:

Mountain Lion seems to have some nifty features, but I have to admit: I miss that excited feeling I used to get when new OS X versions came out (e.g. Tiger, Leopard). Although more expensive, they were stuffed with new user-facing features. The past few years of OS X have not been quite as exciting as iOS...

I'll hold out til WWDC to see if there's something cool and unexpected!

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I feel the total opposite, I feel like every version of OS X that is released is more feature packed than the version before it. Granted, a lot more less visible but very important features were baked into Tiger and Leopard compared to say Lion. Every OS X release is slam packed to the max with new features that get me way more excited than iOS, even though i get excited for both

Offline Reading List is also available in the beta versions of Safari 5.2 for Lion.

acslater017 said:

Mountain Lion seems to have some nifty features, but I have to admit: I miss that excited feeling I used to get when new OS X versions came out (e.g. Tiger, Leopard). Although more expensive, they were stuffed with new user-facing features. The past few years of OS X have not been quite as exciting as iOS...

I'll hold out til WWDC to see if there's something cool and unexpected!

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I am gonna repeat the post I wrote in another thread in order to express, once more, a feeling similar to that above.

I want to make it clear that I am probably one of the most vocals "fanboys" out there, having converted at least 15 people to Mac over the last 5 years.

Moreover, I absolutely hate Windows in all its forms. However, the point I am trying to make is that Apple NEEDS to devote further resources to the OS X team in order to: (i) fix outstanding issues; (ii) come up with new features on the basis of experienced users' feedback, and NOT on automatic presumptions that whatever appears on iOS must be replicated on OS X.

I also noted above a number of other problems which are being either deliberately ignored by Apple, or for which there are no specific resources available, such as:

- the pathetic Airport Utility (the availability of version 5.6 notwithstanding);
- the even more pathetic OS X Server (or what remains of it);
- the less-than-ideal implementation and performance of OpenGL/GPU drivers;
- lack of built-in video codecs for Safari and QuickTime (why do I have to install the now-dead Perian for that?);
- lack of possibilities to tweak settings such as mouse polling rates (so as to avoid jumpy cursors in third-party mouses);
- resolution-independence options as referred to above - I mean, Apple has ALWAYS been at the forefront of handicapped people's needs;
- 64-bit awareness and multithreading across the board (I have EIGHT cores waiting to be used and only HandBrake or a handful of pro apps employ them!);
- basic Blu-Ray support (not that I care either, but why not?);
- dual/triple monitor unified desktop support;
- Safari memory leaks (not that I personally care with 16GB of RAM);
- iMessages' disk space bug (which ends up consuming all RAM plus all available space in the startup disk);
- better WebDAV and so on;
- a growing disregard for Apple UI standards across the board.

So there you go; or do you really want me to care about on-screen reminders? For this we already have Growl. And you must agree with me: Launchpad was definitely not Apple's finest hour.

"Moutation Lion"?

Oh...

The Safari 5.2 beta update 3 downloads reading list items for offline reading in Lion, although it is quite buggy.

Joe HS said:

Hi-DPI support. Major third parties on the MAS. iCloud galleries. Hardware. Maps.

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Thanks for making my point for me, they will preview os x by previewing hardware and maps for ios.

diamond.g said:

I hope the dictation is better than what MS provides in Win7

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Siri's still in beta so I wouldn't expect much honestly. Hopefully though, it'll be out of beta by this summer, but who knows?

Cmd-Cmd to activate dictation? I might as well change my Quicksilver shortcut now.