Feeling lazy? Don't bother tippa-tapping away at your keyboard. Instead, tell your Mac what to do! That's right--show it who's boss with the built-in OS X Speech Recognition service. Read on to find out how to use your voice to do simple things like open applications and check to make sure it's Monday. But, y'know, be kind, use a bit of discretion and say please and thank you afterward. Your Mac will appreciate it.
Begin by opening System Preferences and navigating to Speech > Speech Recognition. Once there, click the On radio button for "Speakable Items." You will notice a small round window pop up that has a microphone in the middle. We'll get to this in a minute.
Next, select Settings and ensure that the correct microphone input is selected. If your Mac has a built-in microphone, it will be selected by default.
Then, find out your Listening Key. This is the key that you will press to have your Mac listen to the command you will speak. You can change this key using the "Change Key" button.
Finally, ensure that the listening method is set to "Listen only while key is pressed." You can leave all of the other options as their defaults, or play around with them to adjust to your liking.
Next, find the small bubble with the microphone that appeared when you turned on Speakable Items. This is the Speech Recognition window that will detect and provide hints to your speech commands. Try this first command:
Hold your Listening Key while saying "What Time Is It?" Then release the key.
Your Mac will respond by telling you the time.
Press and hold the Listening Key, then say "Open Speech Commands Window." You can also press the small downward facing arrow in the Speech Recognition window and select "Open Speech Commands Window."
This window contains all of the speakable items that you can use with your Mac. Your Mac can do Address Book commands, General Speakable Items, and Application Switching.
Feeling blue? One of our favorite things to do with Speech Recognition is to press the Listening Key and say "Tell Me a Joke." Your Mac will then begin telling you a random knock-knock joke. When we did this, we got the following knock knock joke:
Us: Tell me a Joke
Mac: Knock Knock
Us: Who's There?
Mac: Thistle
Us: Thistle Who?
Mac: Thistle be my last knock knock joke.
Follow this article's author, Cory Bohon on Twitter.
