A voice input alternative
that makes no sound.
Dictation is quick when you are alone with the door shut. In an open office, a cafe, a shared flat, or halfway through a call, it is not an option at all.
FlowIn gives you the same head start without a word. It finishes your sentences as you type them, and on a message it drafts the whole reply before you have typed a character.
14 days unlimited, then a free plan. Apple Silicon, macOS 13.3 or later.
The problem was never the microphone
Dictation has got very good. Transcription is accurate, the newer apps clean up your phrasing as they go, and most of them run on your own Mac. None of that helps with the thing that actually stops people using it, which is that you have to talk.
Count the places where you write on a Mac and cannot say the words out loud: a shared desk, a client call, a quiet carriage, a flat with someone asleep in the next room. For a lot of people that is most of the working day, and no amount of transcription accuracy changes it.
FlowIn works the other way round. You keep typing, you just type less of it. The suggestion appears ahead of your cursor and you take a word of it, or the whole sentence.
For a message, it goes further. FlowIn reads the conversation already on your screen and writes the reply, so the thing dictation is best at, getting a lot of words down quickly, happens without any words being said.
When dictation is the better tool
If typing itself is the problem. Plenty of people dictate because typing hurts, or is slow for reasons that have nothing to do with skill. FlowIn reduces how much you type, but you are still typing. It is not hands-free and it is not a replacement for dictation in that situation.
For a long first draft, alone. Nobody types as fast as they talk. With the door shut and two thousand words to get down, dictation wins and this page is not going to pretend otherwise. FlowIn's case is that most writing on a Mac is not that. It is replies, messages, comments, and short sends, written with other people around.
Side by side
| FlowIn | Voice dictation | |
|---|---|---|
| Works without making a sound | Yes | No |
| Usable in an open office or on a call | Yes | Rarely |
| Needs a microphone | No | Yes |
| Works with your hands off the keyboard | No | Yes |
| Better for a long first draft | No | Yes |
| Better for replies and short messages | Yes | Rarely worth invoking |
| Works in any Mac app | Yes | Varies by app |
| Runs on your Mac | Autocomplete yes, replies and rewriting in the cloud | Varies by app |
| Price | Free plan, then $10.99/mo, or $6.67/mo billed annually | Varies, mostly subscriptions |
The right-hand column is the category, not one app. Dictation tools differ a good deal from each other, so check the one you are considering.
Questions
- Is FlowIn a dictation app?
- No. There is no microphone and nothing to speak into. FlowIn is a prediction layer for typing: it finishes your sentences as you type them, ahead of your cursor, and on a message it will draft the whole reply before you have typed a character. If you want speech-to-text, a dictation app is the right tool and FlowIn is not a substitute for it.
- Why use this instead of voice dictation?
- Because of where you are. Dictation is quick when you are alone with the door shut, and unusable in an open office, a cafe, a shared flat, a library, a train, or while you are on a call. Most of the writing people do on a Mac happens in exactly those places. FlowIn gets you a head start silently, so the room never decides whether you can use it.
- Can I use both?
- Yes, and plenty of people should. They do not overlap. Dictate the long first draft when you have the room to yourself, and let FlowIn carry the replies, messages, and comments you write with other people around. Nothing in FlowIn conflicts with a dictation app running alongside it.
- Does it work offline?
- Autocomplete does. It can run on a model on your own Mac, so your sentences keep getting finished with the wifi off. Drafting a reply and rewriting text run on a cloud model and need a connection.
- Which apps does it work in?
- Any text field on macOS: Mail, Slack, Messages, Notion, your IDE, and browser fields too. That is one practical difference from dictation, where how well it inserts text often depends on the app you are in.
- What does FlowIn cost?
- Free to download, with a 14-day unlimited trial and a free plan after it of 150 autocomplete words and 10 AI replies a day. Pro is $10.99 a month, or $6.67 a month billed annually. There is also a one-time license if you would rather not hold another subscription.