Comparison

Yaps vs Apple Dictation

Apple Dictation is free, built into every Mac, and perfectly fine for a quick sentence here and there. But if you dictate regularly — for work, for writing, for accessibility — you'll quickly run into its limits. Yaps picks up where Apple Dictation leaves off.

See the comparison

How Yaps compares

Apple Dictation is a great baseline. Here's what Yaps adds.

Feature	Yaps	Apple Dictation
Accuracy	High	Moderate
Auto-Punctuation	Full	Basic
Fully Offline	Yes	Partial
Privacy (No Upload)	Yes	Partial
Text-to-Speech	Yes	No
Voice Notes	Yes	No
Studio Editor	Yes	No
Voice Commands	Yes	No
Smart History	Yes	No
Custom Voices	Pro	No
Meeting Transcription	Pro (coming soon)	No
Price	From $0	Free

Apple Dictation comes free with your Mac and works well for casual use. Yaps is built for people who depend on voice input every day — with better accuracy, full privacy, and a complete voice toolkit.

Beyond built-in dictation

Same words spoken. Very different results.

Apple Dictation

Raw output

No punctuationFiller wordsNo formatting

Yaps

Cleaned output

Auto-punctuationFiller removalSmart formatting

Same words, spoken naturally. Yaps cleans up your speech so you don't have to.

Where Apple Dictation falls short

Apple Dictation sends audio to Apple's servers for processing (unless you enable on-device mode, which has reduced accuracy)

Punctuation handling is basic — you'll spend time manually fixing periods, commas, and paragraph breaks

No voice notes, no text-to-speech, no recording history — it's transcription only

The on-device mode works offline but with noticeably lower accuracy than the cloud version

No way to search or revisit past dictation — once it's typed, the transcript is gone

Limited customization — no custom voice profiles, no vocabulary training, no commands

What Yaps does differently

Yaps processes 100% of speech on-device — always. There's no cloud mode, no data upload, no compromise

Smart auto-punctuation handles periods, commas, question marks, exclamation marks, and paragraph breaks

A complete toolkit: STT, TTS, voice notes, studio editor, voice commands, and searchable history

Full-accuracy speech recognition that runs offline — same quality whether you're online or not

Smart history keeps a searchable log of everything you've dictated, organized by date and context

Voice commands, custom vocabulary handling, and Pro features like custom voices and meeting transcription (coming soon)

Everything Apple Dictation isn't

Apple built the basics. Yaps built the rest.

Better Speech-to-Text

Higher accuracy, better punctuation, smarter formatting — all running locally on your Mac. Yaps handles technical vocabulary, proper nouns, and natural speech patterns better than Apple's built-in option.

Text-to-Speech

Apple Dictation only goes one direction. Yaps also reads text back to you — perfect for proofreading, accessibility, or listening to long documents while you do something else.

Voice Notes

Record quick voice memos that are automatically transcribed and searchable. Apple has Voice Memos, but it doesn't transcribe. Yaps does both in one app.

Studio Editor

A dedicated text-to-speech workspace. Write or paste text, choose from 18+ voices, and generate audio with waveform preview. Export as WAV with SRT subtitles. Apple Dictation has nothing like it.

Voice Commands

Go beyond dictation into voice control. Open apps, switch windows, trigger macOS shortcuts, and create custom voice actions. Apple's Voice Control exists but is separate and less flexible.

Smart History

Every dictation session is logged and searchable. Find that email you spoke last Tuesday, or revisit meeting notes from last month. Apple Dictation keeps no history at all.

Hear from people like you.

“

“I used Apple Dictation for two years before trying Yaps. The accuracy difference was obvious in the first five minutes. But what really sold me was the voice notes and history. I dictate 20-30 times a day and being able to search past dictations is something I can't live without now.”

Emily Nakamura

Technical Writer

More than what comes built in

Start free. See the difference in five minutes.

Requires macOS 13.0+ (Apple Silicon recommended)