In January 2008, iListen was discontinued, and replaced by 'MacSpeech Dictate' (released February 15, 2008). Its competitors at the time were Apple's own speech recognition software (built into Mac OS X) Dragon Naturally Speaking for PC by Nuance, running under a Windows virtualization software solution such as Parallels Desktop for Mac or VMware Fusion and the discontinued program ViaVoice by Nuance/ IBM. First released in 2000, by 2006 iListen was the only third-party software product that allowed voice-to-text input on the newer MacIntosh models requiring OSX. MacSpeech's first product, iListen, was developed in partnership with Philips Speech Processing using its 'FreeSpeech 2000' speech engine.

(The first dictation software for Mac OS 9 was Articulate System's PowerSecretary.) Seeing a continued need for a Mac-based speech-to-text solution, MacSpeech was founded in 1996 by Andrew Taylor, a former employee of Articulate Systems experienced with software-based speech recognition technologies. The first commercial voice dictation product for Mac OS X was IBM's ViaVoice, but ScanSoft, the company that had exclusive global distribution rights to ViaVoice, merged with Nuance and stopped developing ViaVoice for Macintosh. On February 12, 2010, Nuance Communications, Inc. The company's products included iListen, MacSpeech Dictate, MacSpeech Dictate Medical, MacSpeech Dictate Legal, MacSpeech Dictate International, and MacSpeech Scribe.

was a New Hampshire-based technology company that produced software-based speech recognition and voice dictation solutions for the Apple ecosystem.

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