Notes from the workshop.
Short essays, longer rationales, the occasional teardown. Mostly about dictation, sometimes about writing, computers, and the seam between them.
- June 2, 2026Guide
How to dictate on a Mac: the 2026 guide.
The complete 2026 guide to Mac dictation: how to enable it, change the hotkey, switch languages, fix accuracy issues, dictate in any app, and when to switch to a dedicated dictation tool.
14 min → - June 1, 2026Roundup
Best dictation app for Mac (2026): 7 tested, ranked by use case.
Six dictation apps for Mac that are genuinely worth using in 2026, plus one famous one that isn't. Ranked by use case (cross-platform, power user, file transcription, free), not by marketing budget.
12 min → - May 24, 2026Comparison
Willow Voice vs Speechcap: cross-platform reach or Mac-first depth.
Willow Voice ships on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android with a polished style-memory feature. Speechcap is Mac-first, runs on-device, and is roughly half the price. Both work, the question is which gap matters to you.
6 min → - May 24, 2026Comparison
Apple Dictation vs Speechcap: where the built-in falls short.
Apple's built-in dictation is free and right there in macOS. It's also stuck around 88% accuracy and won't fix your um's. Here's where the gap actually matters.
6 min → - May 24, 2026Comparison
Superwhisper vs Speechcap: modes or simplicity.
Superwhisper's modes give you per-context AI prompts and serious flexibility. Speechcap is push-to-talk + one clean pipeline. Which wins depends on whether you want a power tool or a sharp knife.
6 min → - May 24, 2026Comparison
MacWhisper vs Speechcap: transcribe files, or dictate live.
These tools sound similar but solve different problems. MacWhisper transcribes audio files you give it. Speechcap types what you say into any text field, live. Which one you need depends on the verb.
5 min → - May 24, 2026Migration guide
Dragon NaturallySpeaking on Mac in 2026: it's gone. Here's what to use.
Nuance discontinued Dragon for Mac in 2018. The last version doesn't run on modern macOS. For Mac users, the migration question is what fills the gap, and modern Whisper-based tools have closed most of it.
5 min → - May 24, 2026Comparison
Wispr Flow vs Speechcap: an honest comparison.
Both tools turn your voice into clean text on a Mac. Wispr Flow has more polish, broader platform support, and a head start. Speechcap is half the price, runs on-device, and uses push-to-talk by design.
7 min → - May 21, 2026Essay
The case for push-to-talk.
Tap-to-toggle dictation feels modern. Hold-a-key feels primitive. We think the primitive one wins, here's the case, from someone who shipped both.
7 min → - June 2, 2026Comparison
Aqua Voice vs Speechcap: contextual cloud, or private on-device.
Aqua Voice ships a context-aware cloud transcription model with screen-reading accuracy on coding and technical work. Speechcap runs Whisper and AI cleanup on-device. Both are good, they're making different bets.
6 min → - June 2, 2026Comparison
VoiceInk vs Speechcap: open-source local AI, or polished pipeline.
VoiceInk is open-source, lifetime-priced, and runs local AI for transcription. Speechcap is a polished commercial product with on-device transcription and AI cleanup on the free plan. Both honour privacy, they take different paths to it.
6 min → - June 2, 2026Comparison
Voibe vs Speechcap: lifetime offline, or recurring with cleanup.
Voibe is a Mac-only, Apple-Silicon-only dictation app with on-device Whisper and a one-time lifetime purchase. Speechcap adds on-device AI cleanup, PPP pricing, and 89-language coverage on a subscription. Same privacy stance, different scope.
5 min → - June 2, 2026Comparison
Letterly vs Speechcap: notes-as-output, or live dictation.
Letterly turns voice recordings into structured notes, emails, X posts, and to-do lists. Speechcap types what you say into any app, live. They overlap on "voice in," but the output shape is the whole point.
5 min → - June 2, 2026Engineering
Dictation for non-native English speakers: what most apps get wrong.
Most dictation apps were tuned by and for native English speakers. They preserve the patterns that mark you as non-native, 'I am knowing him since five years', 'do the needful', 'discuss about this'. Speechcap's cleanup was rebuilt to normalise them. Here's what we did and why.
7 min →