Posts Tagged → dictation

Wispr Flow Is the New TextExpander

The first time I installed TextExpander, it changed how I used my Mac. Snippets I typed twenty times a day became three keystrokes. It wasn’t the most powerful text utility on the Mac. There were heavier options out there. But TextExpander hit the spot: the feature was powerful enough to be useful and simple enough to use every day. That’s a hard place to land.

Wispr Flow has done the same thing for dictation.

I’ve been dictating into Macs for years. I’ve tried the high-end stuff. I’ve tried the built-in stuff. None of it was quite right. Wispr Flow is the one that did.

A few things make it work. The accuracy is good enough that I trust it on the first pass. The custom dictionary handles names like “MacSparky” without me having to babysit the result. It runs everywhere I write, and it gets out of the way when I don’t want it.

Wispr Flow isn’t the most powerful dictation tool you can buy. There are heavier-duty options if you need them. Wispr Flow sits in the Goldilocks position. Enough features to make it worth paying for. Not so many that learning becomes a burden.

And I’ve been hearing from listeners and readers who have reached the same conclusion.

The price is around $10 to $15 a month. I’ve run roughly 200,000 words through it at this point, including the rough draft of this newsletter. If you want to try it, my affiliate link gets you a free month of Pro.

This is not a sponsorship. I just dig the app. That’s the whole take. A tool that brings dictation to everyday Mac use, the way TextExpander brought snippets to it. If you’ve been on the fence about dictation, this is the one I’d point you to.

Why Dictation is Easier and More Relevant

I’ve been talking to my computer for decades, and it’s finally paying off for everyone.

Yesterday I dictated this entire newsletter into my iPad mini using the Drafts app and WhisperMemos while sitting in my backyard. No special microphone, no training sessions, no leaving awkward pauses between words like I had to do in the old days.

Just hit the red button and start talking. The fact that this works still amazes me.

The Long Road to Here

My dictation journey started with Dragon Dictate, back before it became Dragon NaturallySpeaking. You had to… leave… spaces… between… each… word… or… it… didn’t… work.

Even when I got pretty skilled at it, every document needed serious cleanup afterward. The software had no context, so “their” and “there” were constant battles, and forget about getting proper names right, even with extensive training.

For years, dictation felt like a promising technology that never quite delivered on its promise. You needed professional microphones, quiet rooms, and the patience of a saint. Most people tried it once and gave up.

But something fundamental has changed. The AI models powering today’s dictation tools understand context in ways the old systems never could. They don’t need training on your voice, they handle background noise gracefully, and they make intelligent guesses about what you actually meant to say. It’s the difference between a computer transcribing sounds and an AI re-constructing speech.

There are so many good Whisper-based apps available now. The real breakthrough isn’t any single app, it’s that we’ve crossed a threshold where dictation just works.

The hardware requirements have disappeared, too. I’m dictating this on an iPad mini using its built-in microphone. No headset, no external mic, no special setup. Because I’m outside right now, there birds chirping and a trash truck drove down the street a few minutes ago. It doesn’t matter. The same device that’s perfectly fine for FaceTime calls turns out to be perfectly fine for dictation.

How It Changes Your Writing

Thinking verbally is different from thinking with your fingers or a pencil. When I dictate, I err on the side of abundance in my first draft, then edit ruthlessly. It’s perfect for my natural workflow.

There’s something about speaking your thoughts that makes the writing more personal. When I’m typing or writing by hand, I tend to edit myself before the words hit the page. With dictation, ideas flow more freely. I’m more willing to explore tangents and follow interesting threads. You can always clean it up later.

Part of me still thinks fondly of Captain Picard doing his captain’s log on the Enterprise. That’s basically me every day now, creating content for you.

If dictation makes you nervous because your thoughts come out messy, solve that with preparation. Spend some time making a mind map or outline before you hit record. Then trust that you can fix it in the edit, and let your voice get a little more personal.

Give It Another Shot

Not everyone has delved as deeply into this rabbit hole as I have, but I’m telling you: if you tried dictation in the past and gave up, it’s worth revisiting. We can finally declare dictation a solved problem. I honestly didn’t know that would happen in my lifetime.

The tools are there, they work reliably, and they’re getting better every month. Whether it’s Apple’s built-in dictation (which is acceptable but not best-in-class), or some third-party Whisper-adjacent transcriber, pick one and give it a real try for a week.

Whisper Memos Now Summarizes

One of the easiest ways to take advantage of artificial intelligence right now is voice-to-text transcription. I’ve been dictating to computers for decades, and I can tell you it’s never been easier than it is now. My weapon of choice for this on my iPhone is Whisper Memos. (The app has in the past sponsored MacSparky, but I was a paying subscriber long before that.)

The developer recently informed me that he was working full-time on his various Whisper-related applications and this change is already paying dividends. A recent update to Whisper Memos adds an auto-summarization feature. So now, in addition to reliably catching your words, you can also get a summary of anything you dictate to the application.

Below is a video that I created for the MacSparky Labs over a year ago, showing how I’ve combined this application with the action button on my Apple Watch to give me a seamless dictation workflow. I’m still using it daily.

Also, want to join the MacSparky Labs? The discount code: HOORAYWHISPER gets you 10% off, but it’s only good until Sunday.

MacWhisper 3.0

MacWhisper, the app that uses an AI Large Language Model to create transcripts, just got its third major update. Improvements include:

  • New full transcript mode
  • Podcast mode, which can transcribe a podcast by adding the audio files for each host.
  • System App transcription. Record and transcribe your zoom meetings or any other audio source on your Mac
  • Faster speed (up to 40%).

I can’t help but feel that we are at an inflection point with voice to text and it is getting a lot easier to use and implement. MacWhisper is part of this wave.

Voice Control is a Game Changer for Voice to Text Dictation Apple Devices

When I made my video a few weeks ago about the problems with dictation on the Mac and mobile devices, I was aware of some new changes coming with iOS 13 and Catalina concerning the accessibility voice control but hadn’t dug in deep enough. Since that time, I have installed some betas, and now I realize why Nuance is abandoning Apple.

The feature is called Voice Control, and it is pretty remarkable. It works very similar to Dragon on the Mac. It allows you to dictate text and control your device with your voice. It does not run on a timer so you can speak as long as you need to. It has its own custom dictionary (although as I write this, it does not seem to be working) and even uses many of the same commands that Dragon uses. Best of all, starting in September, it will be on everyone’s iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

I’m writing this very article with it.

This is more than a simple voice to text dictation tool. It does that with all of the above bells and whistles. But you can also use it to navigate the cursor around your text and make corrections, open applications, and otherwise control your device. If I were to talk to someone at Apple, I presume they would say this is primarily an accessibility feature than a dictation feature. However, in the few weeks I’ve been using it, I believe it does both pretty well. I like it so much that I have canceled my Dragon Anywhere subscription that I talked about just a few weeks ago.

You enable the new feature under the accessibility panel. You can toggle it on and off with your voice using the commands “wake up” And “go to sleep”. I’ve also added the accessibility panel to my control center so I can swipe down and tap a button.

Is this as good as Dragon on the Mac was? Probably not. But it’s close enough. And I expect once a lot of people start using and the Apple artificial intelligence fires up, it will only get better with time.

The new voice control feature is a significant upgrade to voice to text dictation on all Apple devices. It’s going to be baked into everybody’s device without any subscription or additional software, and if you want to start writing text with your voice, there is no better time to start than September. See the below demonstration video to get a better idea of how it works.