I use an M Series MacBook Air and spend all day inputting text mainly via apps in the browser (Arc & Chrome).
I’m UK based.
have tried the built in macOS dictation and it’s ok. Is it worth exploring Superwhisper or Macwhipser? Anyone have any experience?
I need as much accuracy as possible, the ability to add words from my own sector and ideally being able to use the keyboard at the same time.
I find that the voice control dictation, which is different to the standard dictation, is actually very very good. It didn’t used to be, but it has improved a lot. You can add your own vocabulary in.
Also worth bearing in mind that Whisper is definitely a transcription rather than dictation product and likes to do its own punctuation. Spoken punctuation commands (“paragraph”, “comma”) will be transcribed literally unless (I guess, theoretically, though I’ve no direct experience of this) you specifically instruct otherwise in a custom prompt which I believe is easier in Super- than Mac-whisper
You could also experiment with your input device, and local noise in your environment may play a role. I use MacOS dictation from time to time (to alleviate RSI), and accuracy little hit and miss. I have a Blue Yeti Microphone set up, and the closer I am to it, the better. My MBP is off-centre, and when the mic isn’t plugged in, I think I loose accuracy.
I also had a fling with the Whisper apps, but @Percussor is right that there is a difference between dictating straight into any text windows on your system, and what these apps seems mostly to offer, which is the processing of speech to formatted text (often ran through AI or other engines to clean things up – to my experience, not always in ways that help me). I too am wedded to saying the punctuation marks, and don’t care for anyone else to punctuate me!
MacSparky recently shared a good tip that on Sequioa, Voice Memos now has transcription abilities. I’ve used that a few times when out and about with my phone, record a note on it, and then have it transcribed at my desk on the MBP.
I am a big fan of Wispr Flow (and their privacy policy, which is HIPPA compliant — you have to select this mode). I have it on both my mac and phone and use it all the time as do several colleagues. It’s also really helpful with chatbots, I barely type at all now when using ChatGPT.
I will have a look at Wispr Flow.
To address the original question:
MacWhisper is really for transcription, not dictation. I have been using Willow app for dictation on the Mac, which is reasonably successful. I haven’t quite worked out how to deal with commands like new paragraph and open and close brackets.
( this paragraph was dictated with Willow App. ) (and the brackets added in manually)
I should have added, if I understand it correctly, Willow app works on your Mac rather than going out to the cloud.
MacWhisper has a new dictation function in beta, I only tried it out a little bit, but it seems ok.
There’s a toggle to listen for punctuation commands, so you can do things like comma, new line, etc.
Agree with this. Have tried several different solutions recently and Wispr Flow is by far the best. As Beck says, you can use it on iPhone and on both silicon and intel macs. If you have an academic position they will discount the subscription too. PS there is a similar thread here.
Is Wispr Flow worth the money? I know this is based on individual use but it’s more expensive than I was anticipating.
Also discovered Spokenly, 50% of Wispr Flow.
I don’t pay for mine, and find that I get away with the 2000 words maximum per week so far. I’ve tried to send them my edu credentials twice, to qualify for the discount but they are so backed up with support tickets that it’s taken months to sort out. So, I am still on the free tier. It works. The app is fantastic though.
I have had a limited use case so far, mostly dictating low importance emails and notes to myself. A recent new addition is speaking my comments for marking student essays. Here, it works in my favour, since I think that my spoken feedback is more approachable, informal, and so also tad more friendly. I am sure there is a lot more writing via dictation that I could do, but I am still transitioning to other use cases (e.g. dictating formal academic writing – but I am much more of a control freak in that space and don’t like ‘being punctuated’ by an AI).
My usage pattern would be slightly different because I’m most likely to use it on my iPhone rather than my Windows laptop (work issued, sadly no choice on that), and the free tier is only 1000 words on iOS.
My other option is Super Whisper. But it seems incapable allowing dictation in post without switching away from the text and then back again.
I am using Spokenly which seems great. You can use local or cloud based models. I am using Nvidia’s parakeet locally. Fair pricing. I think it is free if you just use local models.
I really love VoiceInk, responsive solo dev and one time purchase!
I have been using AquaVoice and I am very happy with it. It is very accurate and easy to use.
superwhisper is by far the best I’ve found. It’s pricier, but fast, highly customizable, and the most accurate. I use it all day long, mostly for work. If your work involves a lot of writing, it’s worth it.
I have used both Willow voice app and Wispr Flow - got the latter at half price during the Black Friday sales.
In terms of text, I have found both surprisingly accurate. The problem I run into is trying to capitalise some terms such as, for example, Complaint or Policy where they are defined terms and inserting some punctuation like quotation marks.
Going back and editing to correct those things seems to reduce my output down to 74 wpm.
I’m using Sayline. It works only locally, no data is being sent to the cloud. And it’s also one time purchase. The developer is also very responsive and he promised Sayline should also be officially on the Mac App Store in a few days from now. Right now it’s available only on his website (sayline . app)
In my experience it’s very fast, accurate and reliable. You can add custom words into your own dictionary and also custom AI prompts which comes in handy for quick formatting etc.