Because of the M-series processors, the dictation feature on macOS and iOS (was already good enough) has become super fast, accurate, and just awesome to use! I’ve been using it a lot recently, and it’s been a total game-changer for me.
I’ve cut my input time by at least 30–40%, which is huge considering my typing speed is slow, around 50–60 WPM. Now, I just speak my thoughts, review what’s written, make a few quick edits, and I’m done.
If you haven’t tried dictation in a while, especially on an M series processor Macs, I highly recommend giving it a shot. The improvements are seriously impressive. Right now, I have mapped it to double press right ⌘ key.
It’s only great if you have an American accent. For my Indian accent, it gets many things wrong but it does work well half the time so I use it when I quickly need to send a message.
For any serious usecases - conversations, dev, I use Superwhisper.
Interesting. I’m an American and speak with a 100% American accent. I use otter.ai and I find it is better at far better at interpreting South Asian accents than I am.
Are you referring to the built in dictation or with extra software?
I’ve found the in built dictation on macOS to be OK, and following the episode where AI dictation tools were mentioned, I tried both superwhisper and Macwhisper. Was solely disappointed with the dictation in Superwhisper but found Macwhipser out performed it no end.
However, I probably don’t use it as often as I could.
It’s pretty good! Far, far better than it used to be, and, I love the ability to use the keyboard at the same time as I’m dictating.
For some situations - specifically, for me, when I want to dump a whole lot of text out in one 2-3 minute burst, to figure out what I’m thinking - the AI tools are even better. I like using ChatGPT’s dictation button to do that, then ask ChatGPT to clean up what I’ve just dictated.
I don’t really use built-in dictation on the Mac. I find I can type faster and more conveniently. Perhaps I should use dictation, though.
I use the heck out of it on the iPhone, though. Probably more than half of the text I enter is dictated — sometimes with hilarious results — like the time recently I sent a business email that concluded “did you get a taxi? maybe we should get an uber? do they have uber here?” — I was standing outside a hotel in Barcelona with a couple of colleagues, reading and dictating email while multitasking.
Then yes, it’s not to bad - it’s FAR better than the in built Windows version, as I’ve been trying to use that recently following some success using the Mac one.
This is my experience as well. I use dictation on iPhone ALL THE TIME, but on Mac I don’t see the value.
Please someone convince me otherwise! I would love to try something different.