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VV vs Apple Dictation: what are you actually paying for?
Apple's dictation is free, already installed and, on Apple silicon, processed on your Mac. Any paid app has to justify itself against that. Here is the justification, and the cases where there isn't one.
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Start with the free option, properly
A comparison page that damns the free built-in tool is not a comparison, it is an advertisement. So: Apple Dictation is good, and most people who bounce off it never turned it on correctly.
Apple's own guidance tells Mac users to check Keyboard settings to see whether your voice inputs and transcripts for general text Dictation … are processed on your device and not sent to Siri servers
, and notes this varies by language and region. It also states plainly that you can dictate text of any length without a timeout
, with dictation stopping after 30 seconds of silence. On a Mac with Apple silicon you can keep typing while dictating.
- Turn it on System Settings → Keyboard → Dictation. Switch it on and pick your language.
- Read the line underneath the toggle This is the bit everyone skips. It tells you, for your language, whether processing happens on your Mac. It is the most useful sentence in the whole panel.
- Set a shortcut you will actually press The default varies by Mac. Pick something your hands can find without looking — that single change decides whether you use dictation at all.
- Dictate for a week before spending anything Keep a note of what you correct. If the list is short and varied, you are done and this page has saved you money. If it is the same fifteen names every day, read on.
The wall people actually hit
It is almost never general accuracy. Apple's recogniser handles ordinary English well. The wall is that a general-purpose speech model has never heard of your colleague, your product, your client or your field's jargon — and it cannot be taught.
So you dictate a three-line reply in eight seconds and then spend forty seconds fixing four proper nouns. Do that fifteen times a day and dictation stops feeling faster than typing, because it is not.
What a general model hears
Can you send the sioban deck to N.H.S. digital before the wednesday stand up, and see if kieran has the revised P.O.
What Vaitly Voice writes, once taught
Can you send the Siobhán deck to NHS Digital before the Wednesday stand-up, and see if Kiéran has the revised PO?
Nothing clever happened there. Vaitly Voice was told, once, how those four words sound and how they are spelt. That is Vocabulary, and it is the reason most people who pay for a dictation app do.
What VV adds, item by item
| Apple Dictation | Vaitly Voice | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, included with macOS | Free tier, then $5.99/month, $49/year, or once |
| Recognition on device | Yes on Apple silicon for supported languages — check the Keyboard panel | Yes, by default |
| Works in every app | Yes, anywhere you can type | Yes, anywhere you can type |
| Custom vocabulary with a spoken form | No | Yes |
| Text snippets from a spoken trigger | No | Yes |
| Local history of what you dictated | No | Yes, with the audio, for a retention period you set |
| Rewrite into bullets, an email or clean notes | No | Yes, local by default |
| Hands-free latched mode | Dictation continues until 30 seconds of silence | Double-tap to latch, tap to stop |
| Languages | Very broad | Fewer |
| Works on Intel Macs | Yes | No — Apple Silicon (M1 or later) only |
Apple details from Apple's own Mac User Guide, read 11 September 2026. Apple's language and region availability changes; check the Keyboard panel on your own Mac.
Where Apple Dictation is simply better
- Languages. Apple supports far more than we do. If you dictate in a language we do not cover, there is no argument to have.
- Intel Macs. Vaitly Voice requires Apple Silicon (M1 or later). Apple Dictation does not.
- iPhone and iPad. Apple's dictation is on every Apple device you own. Vaitly Voice is a Mac app.
- Cost. Free is a feature. If you dictate twice a week, it is the winning feature.
- Nothing to install or permit. No accessibility permission, no microphone prompt from a third party, no extra app in the menu bar.
Can you use both?
Yes, and it is a common arrangement. Apple Dictation is bound to its own shortcut and Vaitly Voice to another. People often keep Apple's for quick phone-style dictation and use Vaitly Voice for work with names in it, or keep Apple's on the iPhone and Vaitly Voice on the Mac.
Where these facts came from
Anything stated about another product was read on that product's own site or documentation on the date shown, and is re-checked at least quarterly. If something below has changed, tell us and we will correct it.
- Apple tells Mac users to check Keyboard settings to see "whether your voice inputs and transcripts for general text Dictation … are processed on your device and not sent to Siri servers," and notes this varies by language and region. source, checked .
- Apple states "You can dictate text of any length without a timeout," and that dictation stops automatically after 30 seconds of silence. source, checked .
- Apple's guidance describes continuing to type while dictating on a Mac with Apple silicon. source, checked .
Questions
Is Apple Dictation on-device?
On Apple silicon Macs it can be, for supported languages. Apple's own guidance tells you to check the text under the Dictation toggle in Keyboard settings, because it varies by language and region. That line is authoritative for your machine; a web page cannot be.
Does Apple Dictation have a time limit?
Apple states you can dictate text of any length without a timeout, and that dictation stops automatically after 30 seconds of silence. The old 30-second cap is long gone.
Can I add custom words to Apple Dictation?
Not in the way a dictation app means it. You can add entries to macOS text replacement, which substitutes typed strings, but that is not the same as teaching the recogniser how a name sounds so it biases towards your spelling. That is the gap VV's Vocabulary fills.
Why would I pay when the free one is on-device too?
You would not, unless one of these is true: you correct the same names every day, you want a history you can replay, you want spoken triggers that expand into text, or you want the dictation tidied into bullets or an email. If none apply, the free one wins and we will not pretend otherwise.
Does VV replace Apple Dictation?
No. It installs alongside it and uses its own shortcut. You can turn Apple's off, leave it on, or use each for different things.