Yap
Productivity
voice dictation
SHOW HN2026
104points
44comments
#655of 4,366 in 2026
Top 16%of 2026 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
9 positive, 11 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 4 critical, out of 24 comments about the project. Thread score +0.28.
Idea: 3 for, 0 againstExecution: 1 for, 2 againstDesign: 1 for, 2 againstPrivacy: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
On-device privacy and speed are valuable
From 2 comments
On-device speech recognition on macOS is such a game changer for privacy and speed. Excited to test this out!
echoscarrie on HNI don't think you're missing something - Apple's built in dictation is pretty good. The biggest issue is that it still executes parts of it online via Apple's servers and even…
pancomplex on HN
Simple and clean design
From 1 comment
This is great! Love how simple it is
BurpyDave on HN
Objections
Built-in macOS dictation is already good enough
From 2 comments
I don't think get it unless I'm missing something - how is this different from just using the built in Mac OS dictation feature? At first I thought it was going to be a…
heresalexandria on HNDoes the built-in dictation not use these models or why would I use this app instead of Apple's own dictation?
Ducki on HN
Transcript history should not be stored
From 2 comments
Couple of suggestions/remarks: - Remove the presence of the Dock icon. Yap is the kind of app you just want as a menu bar utility. Like Whisper. - Add a "Settings..." menu item…
jorisw on HNHonestly I'd ditch the Dock icon and keep the menubar item. For a utility with no other UI to use, that's the way to go, and similar apps do the same. W.r.t. the history — I'm…
jorisw on HN
Does not send no data over network, unverified offline claim
From 2 comments
That doesn’t prove it doesn’t send data if it has the possibility. It could use the offline model only as a fallback.
echoangle on HNyeah, this is a possibility and also they could store it and send it after we appear online.
ganeshmshetty on HN
Crashes and no output on macOS 27 beta
From 1 comment
Strangely, on my macOS 27 Beta build 26A5388g, nothing happens after I finish speaking. No input is transcribed or pasted and nothing is shown in the history. I do see the input…
jorisw on HN
Requests
Remove the Dock icon and keep only the menu bar item
From 2 comments
Couple of suggestions/remarks: - Remove the presence of the Dock icon. Yap is the kind of app you just want as a menu bar utility. Like Whisper. - Add a "Settings..." menu item…
jorisw on HNHonestly I'd ditch the Dock icon and keep the menubar item. For a utility with no other UI to use, that's the way to go, and similar apps do the same. W.r.t. the history — I'm…
jorisw on HN
Add a CLI or scripting interface for file transcription
From 1 comment
Ahh that makes sense, I was under the impression that OS dictation used exclusively on device models for dictation now but you're right - they do still send this data for…
heresalexandria on HN
Add a language picker and multilingual support
From 2 comments
Great, hope to see the language picker soon!
xjlin0 on HNBig fan of Handy as well. I often mix languages (german/english) and Apple onboard dictation is not working well in these cases. Having the ability to switch models so far has…
perelin on HN
Support F13 shortcut and a Settings menu item
From 1 comment
Couple of suggestions/remarks: - Remove the presence of the Dock icon. Yap is the kind of app you just want as a menu bar utility. Like Whisper. - Add a "Settings..." menu item…
jorisw on HN
Add automatic punctuation and capitalization
From 1 comment
built a small voice notes thing for myself last week and the surprise was that transcription accuracy wasn't the hard part. it's that i almost never want the raw transcript, i…
outoftheweed on HN
Questions
How is this different from built-in macOS dictation?
From 2 comments
I don't think get it unless I'm missing something - how is this different from just using the built in Mac OS dictation feature? At first I thought it was going to be a…
heresalexandria on HNDoes the built-in dictation not use these models or why would I use this app instead of Apple's own dictation?
Ducki on HN
Does SpeechAnalyzer make network calls?
From 2 comments
Does the new SpeechAnalyzer API not call Apple Servers? I remember when I was building on the last version, it you wanted real time transcription you needed at least to upload it…
HaloZero on HNI think it once did! Now it doesn't - ways to easily verify this: 1) install the dmg in the GH repo 2) turn off wifi 3) use it offline
pancomplex on HN
Alternatives named
Apple built-in macOS dictation
From 1 comment
I don't think get it unless I'm missing something - how is this different from just using the built in Mac OS dictation feature? At first I thought it was going to be a…
heresalexandria on HN
Handy
From 1 comment
Seems nice! I have been using Handy https://handy.computer/ for a while and I am happy with it (using Parakeet), this seems quite similar in terms of features, except that is…
d3k on HN
MacWhisper
From 1 comment
Incidentally, I've been testing a lot of dictation apps and models. I am on macOS Sequoia and intend to skip Tahoe altogether, so newer Apple models were not an option. I also…
jwr on HN
TypeWhisper
From 1 comment
Incidentally, I've been testing a lot of dictation apps and models. I am on macOS Sequoia and intend to skip Tahoe altogether, so newer Apple models were not an option. I also…
jwr on HN
Spokenly
From 1 comment
link to the benchmark against parakeet TDT v2 (the one im using now with spokenly) : https://get-inscribe.com/blog/parakeet-moss-apple-speech-benchmark.html NVIDIA Parakeet TDT…
eric_khun on HN