Apple's built-in dictation is genuinely good for quick phrases. If you've ever found yourself editing its output, teaching it the same proper noun for the fifth time, or wishing it understood Ukrainian properly: that's the gap Hovor fills.
Apple Dictation is free, preinstalled on every iPhone and Mac, and needs no account or subscription. Whether a given session runs on-device or on Apple's servers depends on your device, language, and Keyboard Settings, per Apple's own documentation. It covers 63 language and region variants, including Ukrainian, and has no fixed recording-length cap: it stops only after a period of silence.
Apple's Mac Help states plainly: "you can dictate text of any length without a timeout," with the session ending after roughly 30 seconds of silence. Whether a session is processed on-device or sent to Apple's servers is shown per session in Keyboard Settings; Apple's privacy documentation adds that it does not retain the audio either way unless you separately opt in to "Improve Siri and Dictation."
Apple Dictation is not a bad tool. It's a tool with a specific scope. The question is whether your dictation needs exceed that scope.
Hovor takes the transcript Apple Dictation hands you and runs a second AI pass over it: punctuation, capitalisation, paragraph breaks, and filler-word removal happen automatically before the text lands in your app. On top of that pass, Hovor adds a custom dictionary, selectable tones, text snippets, hands-free recording modes, and an optional fully on-device pipeline: none of which Apple Dictation offers.
The table below lists every capability that meaningfully differs between the two tools, checked against Apple's current documentation and Hovor's shipped feature set as of July 2026. Apple Dictation covers raw speech-to-text and nothing past it; Hovor adds a cleanup and personalisation layer on top, plus an optional fully offline mode.
| Feature | Apple Dictation | Hovor |
|---|---|---|
| Built in & free | Yes: ships with every iPhone and Mac | Free tier (2,000 words/week); Pro $11.99/mo |
| On-device processing | Depends on device, language & Keyboard Settings; not guaranteed on every combination | Yes: Local Unlock ($49.99, macOS + iOS) |
| AI grammar & punctuation cleanup | No: raw transcription only | Yes: automatic after every dictation |
| Custom dictionary for names/terms | No: Text Replacement expands typed shortcuts, but doesn't teach Dictation new vocabulary | Yes: cross-platform |
| Tones and writing styles | No | Yes: formal, casual, concise, custom |
| Recording length limit | No fixed cap; auto-stops after ~30 seconds of silence (per Apple's Mac Help) | No fixed cap; on-device streaming |
| Hands-free auto-stop & continuous mode | Auto-stops on silence; no continuous re-trigger mode | Yes: macOS, on-device via Parakeet |
| Language / region coverage | 63 language/region variants (Apple iOS feature availability) | 25 European languages via Parakeet v3, Ukrainian as a first-class target |
Apple Dictation's on-device-or-cloud routing is not a fixed setting you flip once: Apple's documentation states it is decided per session based on device, language, and Keyboard Settings, and is displayed there rather than guaranteed everywhere. Hovor's default path sends audio to its server for OpenAI transcription; Local Unlock removes that round-trip by running transcription on-device once the model is loaded — a recording made right after an app relaunch or while the model is still downloading still falls back to server transcription.
| Apple Dictation | Hovor | |
|---|---|---|
| Default audio path | On-device or Apple's servers, decided per session (device, language, Keyboard Settings) | Sent to Hovor's server, forwarded to OpenAI for transcription |
| Fully offline option | Only when Apple's per-session indicator shows on-device processing | Yes: Local Unlock ($49.99) runs transcription on-device on Mac and iOS; on-device cleanup is iOS 26+ only (Apple Foundation Models) — on Mac, cleanup still needs the server, Pro, or BYOK |
| Audio retention | Not retained by Apple unless you opt in to "Improve Siri and Dictation" (Apple's privacy documentation) | Hovor's database stores audio duration in milliseconds for billing; no audio bytes are written to disk or database |
| Own API key (BYOK) | Not applicable: closed system | Yes: BYOK Unlock ($24.99), keys stored in device Keychain, never proxied |
Apple Dictation lists Ukrainian among its 63 supported language/region variants, but Apple publishes no per-language accuracy breakdown, so quality with proper nouns, regional vocabulary, or mixed-language speech is not something Apple documents either way. Hovor's on-device model, Parakeet v3, was trained on 25 European languages with Ukrainian as a first-class target, and its AI cleanup pass is applied after transcription regardless of which speech engine produced the raw text.
| Apple Dictation | Hovor | |
|---|---|---|
| Language/region variants | 63 (Apple iOS feature availability listing) | 25 European languages on-device (Parakeet v3); broader coverage via cloud STT |
| Ukrainian listed as supported | Yes | Yes: first-class target, not an afterthought |
| Published per-language quality data | None found in Apple's documentation | Trained on 25 languages with explicit balancing; no independent per-language benchmark published by Hovor either |
| AI cleanup after transcription (grammar, capitalisation, paragraph breaks) | No: output is the raw transcript | Yes: applied automatically, tuned for Ukrainian capitalisation and punctuation conventions |
Apple Dictation costs nothing beyond the price of the device it ships on. Hovor is free for 2,000 words a week, then $11.99/month or $89.99/year for unlimited words across 5 devices; one-time add-ons (Local Unlock $49.99, BYOK Unlock $24.99, or a $69.99 bundle) unlock offline processing or your own API keys permanently instead of as a subscription.
| Apple Dictation | Hovor | |
|---|---|---|
| Base cost | $0: included with iPhone/Mac | Free tier: 2,000 words/week |
| Paid tier | Not applicable | Pro: $11.99/mo or $89.99/yr, unlimited words, 5 devices |
| One-time unlock: offline processing | Not applicable | Local Unlock: $49.99 / 1999 UAH, lifetime |
| One-time unlock: bring your own API key | Not applicable | BYOK Unlock: $24.99 / 999 UAH, lifetime |
| Both unlocks bundled | Not applicable | Bundle: $69.99 / 2799 UAH, lifetime |
Pick Apple Dictation if you dictate short, infrequent snippets on Apple devices only and light manual editing doesn't bother you: zero setup, zero cost, always available. Pick Hovor if you dictate regularly, keep fixing the same punctuation or proper nouns, want tone control over the output, or need Ukrainian accuracy that a general-purpose model doesn't guarantee; the 2,000-word free tier is enough to test that before paying anything.
| Your situation | Better fit |
|---|---|
| Short, occasional dictation on Apple devices only | Apple Dictation |
| Regular dictation with repeated manual cleanup afterward | Hovor |
| Recurring proper nouns or technical terms getting mangled | Hovor (custom dictionary) |
| Need output styled by tone (formal, casual, concise) | Hovor |
| Primarily Ukrainian dictation, mixed-language sentences | Hovor (Parakeet v3, Ukrainian-first) |
| Want the option to run everything fully offline | Hovor (Local Unlock) or Apple Dictation, when its per-session on-device path applies |
It depends on your device, language, and Keyboard Settings. Apple's own documentation says Keyboard Settings indicates, per session, whether your audio and transcript are processed on your device and not sent to Apple's servers — it is not a blanket guarantee across every iPhone, Mac, and language. When it is not processed on-device, audio goes to Apple's servers; Apple states it does not retain that audio unless you separately opt in to "Improve Siri and Dictation."
No, not as a hard cap. Apple's current Mac Help documentation states you can dictate text of any length without a timeout; the session ends automatically only after roughly 30 seconds of silence. The old 60-second cap from early iOS versions is gone; some users report the silence-detection threshold feels more aggressive on recent iOS releases, but Apple does not document a fixed duration limit today.
63 language and region variants, according to Apple's own iOS feature-availability listing, including Ukrainian (Ukraine). That count is locale variants, not distinct languages — for example English and Spanish alone account for more than a dozen region variants between them. Apple does not publish a per-language accuracy or quality breakdown.
Not for dictation accuracy specifically. iPhone and Mac have a separate feature called Text Replacement (Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement) where you manually type a shortcut that expands into a longer phrase. There is no mechanism to teach Apple's speech-recognition model a proper noun, product name, or technical term so it transcribes correctly the next time you say it aloud.
Partly, and only on the newest hardware. Apple's Apple Intelligence page describes "a powerful new on-device model" that improves Dictation accuracy, but as of this writing Apple scopes it to iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone Air, iPad models with M4 or later (12 GB+ unified memory), and Mac models with M3 or later (12 GB+ unified memory) — and lists the improved model as English-only. Base Dictation, covering all 63 language/region variants, is unrelated to this Apple Intelligence upgrade and runs on much older hardware too.
Yes. Hovor's free tier includes 2,000 words per week of cloud transcription with the same AI cleanup, dictionary, and tone features Pro users get, no credit card required. That's enough to dictate several documents or a week of regular messages and judge whether the cleanup pass and dictionary save you editing time before paying $11.99/month or $89.99/year for unlimited words.
2,000 words per week at no cost. No card required. Available on iOS and macOS.
Download HovorHands-free dictation on Mac · Superwhisper alternative · Українською