Jun 13, 2011 13:04 GMT  ·  By

Nuance Communications, the company whose speech solutions have been licensed to Apple, today launched Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 and the new Dragon Remote Mic App for iPhone and iPad.

In conjunction with the launch of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5, a new release of the popular speech recognition software for PCs, Nuance introduced the Dragon Remote Mic App, a free application that makes it possible to use an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad as a wireless microphone for Dragon.

It works on Wi-Fi networks and, apparently, it has been a requested product by many customers who want to use their smartphones and tablets with Dragon, "to gain more flexibility with how and where they dictate," the company said.

Based on figures obtained from Strategy Analytics (Global Devices Research, May 2011), Nuance says the new Dragon Remote Mic App can take any of the 200 million iOS devices in use today and transform them into a wireless microphone that easily captures dictation and controls desktop applications.

“As mobile devices and social networks have become a more important part of our customers’ lives, they have asked us for more flexibility in how they can use Dragon,” said Peter Mahoney, senior vice president and general manager, Dragon, Nuance.

“People who have never tried Dragon before will be genuinely impressed with all the ways it lets you interact with your digital world,” added Mahoney. “Those who are already familiar with Dragon will see some exciting improvements that extend its use with social sharing, and add flexibility with microphones and recording devices.”

Thanks to the new application, users can now give the microphone that comes in the retail box a rest.

The Dragon Remote Mic app can be used with Dragon NaturallySpeaking for PC (v11.5 and higher).

Download Dragon Remote Microphone for iOS (Free)