crankypuss wrote:
> On 09/13/2016 02:02 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
>> crankypuss wrote:
>>
>>> Is there any application, free or paid, running under Android or iOS or
>>> linux, that performs dictation (voice-to-text) without requiring an
>>> internet connection? TIA.
>>
>> Nuance's own web site (
http://tinyurl.com/z6v6kag) shows $0
>> for their Anywhere app. When I click on their Buy Now button, yep, it
>> is subscriptionware. $15/mo, $40/qtr, or $150/yr. However, you never
>> mentioned "free" as a requirement. The weekly subscription is shown as
>> $0 but that's probably for the duration of a trial period. You could
>> test it to see if it meets your needs.
>
> I already pay a goodly sum for shitty internet access, I'm not going to
> add another anchor to that boat: monthly fees absolutely will not fly
> with me.
Software vendors couldn't give a gnat's fart about how much you pay for
Internet access. They aren't ISPs. They write code. Your incidental
costs are irrelevant, especially since you inquired about a product that
doesn't need Internet access. For a local app that does local audio
crunching to convert to local text, Internet access is completely a
non-issue.
The gas station attendent doesn't care how much you pay for car
insurance, either. Not relevant to their sale (of fuel). Not relevant
to their product (fuel).
>> You also didn't mention your Android version, and Nuance Anywhare
>> says it requires Android 4.4 or later (and iOS 8.1 or later). I
>> suspect this is a large-sized app so you'll need to consider how
>> much free memory you have. They don't give memory requirements on
>> their web site for that app.
>
> Who cares what version of Android it runs under?
Ah c'mon, even noobs understand that software has minimal requirements
for support of it within the OS, and that things change with each
version of an OS (else every new version wouldn't be a new version since
it was the same as the prior version). There is some feature of Android
4.4 that Nuance's software requires. Same goes for ALL SOFTWARE. You
might find some apps that require Android 2.2 but then, again, they
aren't going to run under every version of the OS because they obviously
make use of some feature available at a minimal version of the OS. So
you DO care about the OS version because you DO care about using
software on THAT operating system.
In fact, some apps will list a range of versions of Android under which
they will run. Google may decide to remove features from an OS that an
app relied up, so the app cannot run under a later version of Android.
For example, there are anti-spam apps that claim to not only block spam
calls but also spam texts. However, I think it was Android 4.3 (maybe a
late sub-minor version of 4.2) that removed the ability of these apps
from looking at your texts or blocking them. So the anti-spam app has
lost a feature because Google took it away. Obviously the OS version is
important to you regardless of what software solution you might choose.
Memory constraints is another criteria that you haven't bothered to take
into account. Oh, you don't care about that either, uh huh, because you
apparently are the only user of hardware that has infinite memory
capacity.
You need to establish your criteria regarding price (now and possibly
later and perhaps repeatedly) along with hardware limitations (again
typically constrained by budget).
> When there's nothing on the market fit to buy, I tend to get a little
> pissy about the whole modern circus, my bad, sorry.
You just contradicted yourself. Now you're saying you would buy
something if it was "fit". Before you said you wouldn't *buy* anything.
Make up your mind. Do you have a requirement that the app be free? If
so, expect crappy quality or lots of in-app ads (or even rude popup ads
that appear outside the app when you don't think it is even running).
Will you pay for a solution? If so, you have to establish criteria as
to what you can afford and how often. You don't get a $150/yr program
for free unless you steal it - and this is not a pro-warez newsgroup.
First decide on your criteria: budget (now and later), hardware
constraints, and OS constraints. You seem to want a blanket solution
that provides for free an expensive commercialware app without any
hardware limitations and will run under every version of Android that
has ever existed since 2003 and will ever exist hereafter. <rolls eyes>