Sure, we covered Dragon’s fire-breathing dictation service in a blog post last month—quite a useful service if you’ve been bitten by the speech-to-text bug—but there’s a new kid on the block. And it, too, has a bite. It also roars.

Have a Mac? Check out the new Mountain Lion operating system ($19.99 in the App Store) with a built-in dictation tool. You talk; Apple types. Anywhere. Place your cursor where you would normally type—on a Word doc, website, or WebPT note—and press the function key twice. A microphone icon will pop up, displaying your sound level, and you’re ready to go. When you’re done speaking, hit they function key once and your text will appear. Magic.

Well, sort of. Just like Dragon, this dictation tool takes some getting used to. For example, it took me a few tries to remember to speak my punctuation—COMMA—and apparently, the way I pronounce Mike sounded suspiciously like make—PERIOD.

If you’re not used to dictating, the simple act of speaking to your computer can feel a little awkward, and possibly garner you some strange looks from your co-workers (Make, for instance). But if you speak faster than you type, or are comfortable dictating to text, Mountain Lion ain’t too shabby.

Want to learn more? Here’s a Mountain Lion demo (the dictation tool is explained at minute 3:43):

According to a post on blogboygmi, Apple offers no guarantee that the dictation tool is HIPAA compliant. As a result, we recommend limiting your dictation to non-identifiable patient information only. 

Have you tried Mountain Lion, yet? What do you think of the dictation tool?